The Oregon men’s basketball team served up a Happy Meal on Sunday to Global Sports — Supersized.
The Ducks got offensive production from their big men as they beat a traveling team of former college players 85-65 at McArthur Court in their second and final exhibition game.
“The biggest thing from today’s game was that Chris (Christoffersen) played a lot better,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “We’re a lot more comfortable with our inside game.”
Christoffersen scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds, and was one of five players to score in double digits and one of eight players to play double-digit minutes. Sophomore guard Luke Ridnour led all players with 16 points, on the strength of his 12-12 performance from the free-throw line.
“They challenged us with some good big guys,” Christoffersen said. “It was good to get a game like this under our belt.”
The game was anything but pretty, as the gritty Global Sports team forced Oregon into turnovers and fouled often. The Ducks, who had talked about cutting down on unforced turnovers after they committed 23 in the exhibition opener, again committed 23 against Global Sports.
“We just didn’t take care of the ball,” Oregon guard Freddie Jones said.
Many of those turnovers came in the first half, when mistakes on both sides of the court kept the score close. The score was 34-28 Oregon at the half. Global Sports was also kept in the game by the sharp shooting of former Iowa State guard Michael Nurse. The guard went 3-for-4 from behind the three-point arc in the first half, and ended 5-for-7 on the night. Many of Nurse’s threes came from NBA-range or longer.
But Nurse ended up hurting his team in the second half. He received a technical foul in the first frame for yelling at an official during a time-out, then got ejected for strong words to the student section after drilling a long-range three-pointer in the second.
The Ducks’ fans were treated to a usual array of Oregon fast-break trickery and dunking, and the small crowd at Mac Court got especially loud for a Jones dunk on an alley-oop from Ridnour in the 17th minute of the first half. The jam gave Oregon its first 10-point lead of the game.
“I was just trying to keep us going,” Jones said.
The Ducks would widen their lead to as many as 22 before winning by 20 points.