A four-game homestand for the Oregon Ducks turned into four straight losses, culminating with a nail-biting 62-60 loss to California on Saturday.
The Ducks lost the four home games against UCLA, USC, Stanford and California by an average of 4.5 points and now have lost five in row since their Jan. 19 win against Washington State.
“We really felt like we were in great shape to come home and really go on a little bit of a run,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said, looking back on the Washington State victory. “But, it has not happened here. Not that we’ve played horrible by any means. We’ve been unlucky in some situations.”
One of the unlucky situations Kent was referring to occurred Thursday when Stanford’s Chris Hernandez connected on a three-pointer with 11.3 seconds left to give the Cardinal the victory.
That loss didn’t appear to affect the Ducks early in the first half Saturday against the Bears.
Oregon jumped out to a 24-17 lead with 6:07 remaining in the half before California went on a 14-4 run – capped off by Ayinde Ubaka’s three-pointer at the buzzer – to take a 31-28 lead at the break.
Ubaka finished with 13 points in the first half and 20 for the game on 6 of 9 from the field, including 3 of 4 from three-point range to lead the Bears.
The Ducks closed the second-half deficit to one early on, but never regained the lead. Down 46-37 with 10:39 to play, Oregon used a 10-4 run to close within three, but California’s Leon Powe kept the Ducks at bay down the stretch.
Powe’s jumper and DeVon Hardin’s dunk pushed the Bears’ lead to seven with 3:03 remaining before Maarty Leunen and Bryce Taylor responded to again make it a three-point game.
Powe then connected on a free-throw-line jumper, his final basket of the game, to push the lead to five. The 6-foot-8 sophomore finished one rebound short of his seventh consecutive double-double. He scored 15 points and grabbed nine rebounds Saturday.
“Leon made two big plays for us down the stretch,” California coach Ben Braun said. “He struggled a bit, but he made some big plays. I thought Oregon defended him pretty well.”
The game appeared out of reach after an offensive foul by Leunen with the Ducks down six with 18 seconds remaining. But Malik Hairston followed a Chamberlain Oguchi miss with a dunk, and Aaron Brooks stole the ensuing inbounds pass and scored to cut the lead to two with just less than five seconds left.
California’s Theo Robertson was then fouled and made only the second of two free-throws to give the Bears a three-point cushion at 62-59. Brooks was fouled by the Bears’ Richard Midgley while bringing the ball up the court with slightly more than one second left.
Brooks made the first free throw and intentionally missed the second with the Ducks down 62-60. The ball was tipped near the baseline where Brooks caught it and shot an off-balance jumper, which missed everything at the buzzer.
“In the four losses, all you have to look at is our shots,” Kent said. “We have averaged 15 or 16 open shots in each of those games. We just need them to start falling more often.”
Leunen led the Ducks with 15 points and nine rebounds. He was the only Oregon player in double figures, including Hairston, the Ducks’ leading scorer, who finished with six points on 3-of-7 shooting.
“It’s not by design for Malik to get seven shots,” Kent said. “We need for him to hunt more and get more shots.”
Braun applauded his team’s effort against Oregon’s superstar, who was averaging 14.8 points per game entering Saturday.
“A big key was, defensively, we were able to defend Malik Hairston, and most of the league hasn’t been able to do that,” Braun said. “He’s an awfully good player.”
The Ducks (10-13 overall, 4-7 Pacific-10 Conference) fell to three games below .500 for the first time since Kent’s first season at Oregon in 1997-98, despite leading in many statistical categories Saturday against the Bears (14-6, 8-3).
The Ducks held an edge in rebounding (33-27) and points in the paint (42-24), and had a better overall shooting percentage at 47.3 compared with the Bears 44 percent. But 15 percent (3 of 20) from the three-point range and only nine total free-throw attempts, to the Bears’ 18, hampered the Ducks.
“As a coach, you’ve been on this end of it too. We’ve all been on what Ernie’s team is going through,” Braun said. “All the things that you asked your team to do, their team did it. I know it’s got to be frustrating, but that’s the way this league is.”
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