Oregon rode the clutch play of its three senior stars down the stretch, fighting off its own poor shooting in the first half and a strong California surge in the second half to win 79-70 in front of 8,817 at McArthur Court in the team’s Pacific-10 Conference home opener.
Malik Hairston and Bryce Taylor led the way with 20 points each, followed by senior forward Maarty Leunen with 18 points and 11 rebounds.
It was Leunen’s conference-leading 10th double-double, and he surpassed the 1,000 point mark for his career, marking the second season in a row that Oregon has boasted three 1,000-point players in its starting lineup.
Oregon had a 14 point lead at 48-34 with 14:32 left to play, but Cal would came charging back with a 22-6 run over the next seven minutes to take their first lead of the second half at 56-54.
Leunen scored the next five points on a left-wing three and two free throws to put Oregon ahead 59-56. Then Taylor took over to score the next five on a right-corner three and a steal that he took coast to coast for a dunk that sent the Mac Court crowd into a frenzy and put the Ducks up 64-56.
Cal would get back to within two of Oregon at 66-64 with three minutes left on three pointers by Ryan Anderson and Patrick Christopher, who would lead all scorers with 22 and 21 points respectively, but Oregon got defensive stops and made its free throws over the last few minutes to post the final margin.
“We know that every team is going to make a run and it’s just what we do to hold it off and go on our own run,” Leunen said. “We just had to settle down a little bit, concentrate a little more on the offense end and get stops.”
Both teams struggled to score in the first half, with California turning the ball over 10 times and Oregon shooting 3-of-17 from beyond the arc, but Oregon inched to a 31-26 halftime lead on the strength of 11 first half points by Hairston.
“I think a lot of it actually is just their zone slowing the game up a little bit and it takes away some of our transition opportunities,” Hairston said.
Freshman guard Kamyron Brown played 37 minutes in the game and scored 10 points while adding six assists, three rebounds and two steals. The increase in playing time was partly due to the struggles of sophomore guard Tajuan Porter, who was scoreless in the game on 0-of-4 shooting.
“(Brown) got 37 minutes because TP is struggling a little bit. We just made the decision to just ride it out with him (Brown) right now,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said. “I decided to go with Kamyron Brown because I thought his energy was good. He was making plays. For a freshman to play that many minutes in his third Pac-10 game, that’s two pretty good back-to-back games that he’s played with Arizona and this game here.”
Brown’s teammates seemed equally impressed with the young guard’s performance.
“He’s just a good player. He handles the ball well and he makes some spectacular passes,” Hairston said. “We don’t pay attention to the whole freshman thing. Guys come along at their own speed and I think he’s done a tremendous job.”
Junior forward Frantz Dorsainvil played 23 minutes off the bench, notching eight points and three rebounds while collecting just one foul while guarding the big Cal post players.
“He’s (Dorsainvil) doing a very good job when he gets the ball down low,” Leunen said. “He’s obviously showing how strong he is and finishing pretty well.”
The Ducks take on Stanford Sunday, 1:30 p.m. at Mac Court, in a nationally broadcast game on CBS.Kent said that the goal will be to win, not to impress a national audience.
“More important than anything, showing the rest of the country or anything else, is protect your home court,” Kent said. “It can be ugly, it can be pretty … it’s win the ballgame. That’s what you have to do. And then let’s regroup and get ready for the road again.”
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