For Oregon, the Ducks’ recent success is pretty simple: Play good defense, and the points will follow.
At least that’s what the players and Oregon coach Ernie Kent iterated in their post-game interviews after the 71-58 victory over Washington (13-12 overall, 4-8 Pacific-10 Conference). The Ducks (15-9, 6-6) played aggressive defense and, after getting a stop, they shared the ball to find the open man to make a shot. And they continued to drain open three pointers.
“Anytime we’re doing that – we’re sharing the ball and knocking down open looks, making it tough on them on the defensive end of the floor, then we’re playing pretty much as well as we like to play,” guard Bryce Taylor said, who led the Ducks with 15 points.
Both forward Maarty Leunen and Kent said the key to their latest victories has been the defense.
“It seems like the better defense we play, the more of a rhythm we get in offensively,” Kent said. “We really, really moved the basketball, shared the ball, giving it up to each other.”
The statistics proved Kent’s claims. Five Oregon players reached double figures in points and the team had 16 assists, numbers that indicated a true unselfish and balanced offense. Even Churchill Odia was involved in the scoring affair, putting up a career-high 12 points.
“I really don’t think I did anything spectacular today,” Odia said. “All I did was try to move the ball around.”
He did that – and the ball would come back to him when he had an open shot. Odia nailed a three-pointer four out of five times, and the Ducks had another high-percentage three-point scoring night, making 14-of-25 threes (56 percent) on plenty of open shots.
As a defense, they held Washington’s leading scorers Jon Brockman and Ryan Appleby to 13 and eight points, respectively; both totals were below their season averages. Leunen said the team played great defense on Brockman and Kent called Taylor’s defense on Appleby “superb.”
“He didn’t give (Appleby) a lot of looks, harassed him, took his jumper away,” Kent said. Kent added that using about five different guys on Appleby and Brockman throughout the game caused both players to tire as the game progressed. That, and it allowed the main Oregon defender to guard them more effectively.
“When you keep throwing different bodies at those good players like that, you tend to have more energy to front (them),” Kent said.
For the Ducks, they said they wanted to wear down the Huskies and out-hustle them to prove a point.
“We made sure that we were the ones getting the loose balls, getting rebounds so we can get out in transition,” Leunen said.
It seemed to work as the Ducks out-rebounded Washington, scored 19 points off turnovers and had 26 foul shots, many on fast breaks, while the Huskies only had nine attempts.
“We wanted to make a statement because they already told everyone we’re soft,” Odia said. “I don’t think we are. I think we’re aggressive and we’re the toughest team in this conference to play against.”
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