Payton Pritchard started in his 133rd career start as a Duck, breaking Oregon’s record and taking over the top spot from EJ Singler in the 353rd Civil War game on Saturday, but failed to perform to his usual standard.
Pritchard led the Ducks with 16 total points and nine assists, but despite being known for his shooting from beyond the arc, he shot 1-8 from the 3-point line and a mere 7-21 from inside the arc.
“Our reaction shooting was really bad and offensively, that’s on me,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said. “We were not getting very good shots, not executing anything on timeouts. We had two turnovers on two timeouts and so our execution needs to get a lot better and our transitions, we just ran out of gas.”
Despite struggling with his shooting, Pritchard came through with some key points in the second half. The Ducks went on an eight-minute scoring drought, complete with four turnovers, while Oregon State went on an eight-point scoring run, taking the lead with nine minutes left in the game.
Pritchard broke the drought with a drive and a layup, tying it up at 44-44. On the next possession, Pritchard got the ball to Will Richardson for a fast break in the paint putting the Ducks up 46-44. The Beavers took the lead with two quick points with 2:52 left on the clock and the Ducks never came back.
“We want our shots to land but obviously when they aren’t falling we rely on the defense,” Pritchard said on the Ducks’ offensive struggles.
While the Ducks entered the second half ahead 32-28, they dropped to 21 points in the second half, handing the Civil War victory to the Beavers with a final score of 63-53.
“That’s kind of been our MO on the road games,” Altman said. “We were just not getting quality shots, not executing, a lot of dribbling and not much ball movement.”
Oregon State set out to shut down Pritchard and succeeded, despite a few pivotal points late in the second half, the West Linn, Ore. native never warmed up.
“We’ve changed our ball screen coverage…we’ve challenged our perimeter players to guard those screen and rolls situations like they are not going to have any help, just toughen up,” Oregon State head coach Wayne Tinkle said on preparing for Pritchard. “The way Ethan [Thompson] guarded tonight was unbelievable. All of those screens they set for Payton [Pritchard] and he just made up his mind that he wasn’t going to give him anything easy…I’m really proud of what he did defensively. He was a warrior.”
Pritchard struggled getting his shots to land, which was detrimental for the Ducks in such a close game. Pritchard did step it up in attempting to make things happen down in the paint. With nine assists he moved to 11th in Pac-12 career assists with 623.
Earlier this week, Pritchard was the only player from the Pac-12 to be named to the Wooden Award Late Season Top 20 Watch List and is also one of the 10 final candidates for the 2020 Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award. In spite of his recent success, Pritchard has struggled offensively in the last two games.
On Saturday’s loss to Stanford, Pritchard shot 30 percent from the 3-point line and 23 percent from inside the arc.
“We’ve been here before,” Pritchard said. “Last year obviously we were way worse so we’ve just gotta regroup, come back and go on a run. We’ve got five games at home of the next seven so we need to make something happen.”
