The needle that the Oregon men’s basketball team wanted so badly in the past week finally showed its face Thursday. In dramatic fashion, the Ducks used it to burst an enclosing bubble that was shadowing their NCAA Tournament hopes.
Luke Ridnour provided the final “pop” as he needled through the Arizona State defense and hit a driving lay-in over Tommy Smith with 3.3 seconds left to give Oregon an 83-82 victory in the first round of the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
“That’s just an awesome win for us,” Ridnour told KUGN-radio. “It puts us over the (NCAA) hump, and we can just go play now and have fun.”
The Ducks (21-9 overall) play eighth-seeded UCLA at 6:15 p.m. today for a spot in Saturday’s title game. UCLA (10-18) shocked No. 1 Arizona in the first game of the tournament Thursday.
Now seemingly assured a spot in the Big Dance, the Ducks will find out their NCAA destination Sunday, but they would guarantee themselves a berth by winning the conference tournament title.
“I hope for all those people that said Oregon needed to win one (to get in the NCAA Tournament), they turn around and say we’re in so we can get some positive energy going our way,” head coach Ernie Kent said. Ridnour and the Ducks certainly had the positive vibes in the final seconds. But Arizona State (19-11) was feeling pretty good, too, with the game on the line.
Robert Johnson swished in a pair of free throws with 35 seconds left to give the Ducks a 79-74 lead, but Arizona State’s unstoppable freshman, Ike Diogu, answered with a bucket. Diogu scored seven points in the final 1:23, and had 27 points and 18 rebounds in the game.
James Davis followed with two free throws, pushing the lead back to five. Then the Sun Devils took charge, scoring six points in less than three seconds.
After missing on his first try, Curtis Millage hit a three-pointer, and after an Oregon turnover on the inbounds play, Diogu was wide open under the hoop during ASU’s inbounds possession. He got the ball, the bucket, the foul on Andre Joseph and the free throw to give the Sun Devils an 82-81 lead with 12.1 ticks left.
“When you look at all the drama that went on in the last minute of the game, there were a lot of mistakes by us, mistakes by them and mistakes by officials,” Kent said. “We were fortunate to get it done, but, in my opinion, it should’ve never come down to that.”
After Diogu’s free throw, the Ducks didn’t have any timeouts remaining. They huddled quickly to set up a high-screen play, which Luke Jackson set for Ridnour at the top of the key. Ridnour did the rest, and sent the Devils packing.
“To have the lead like that go away, to be all of a sudden down one with 12 seconds to go, you gotta give a lot of credit to our team,” said Ridnour, the Pac-10 Player of the Year. “That’s a lot of time the get the shot off. And fortunately, thank the Lord, it went in.”
Ridnour, who said he was fouled by Smith on the play (“I got some big scratches,” Ridnour said), paced the Ducks with 23 points and six assists.
“I could’ve kissed him right then,” Joseph said. “That was a hell of a shot.”

Jackson finished with 17 points, Davis added 16, and Joseph gave the Ducks a boost off the bench by playing the entire second half. Johnson had 13 points, 11 rebounds and a tough defensive assignment in Diogu. Millage had 25 points for the Sun Devils.
Two Ridnour free throws capped off a 10-1 Oregon run midway through the second half to put the Ducks ahead 67-59, their largest lead of the game. Arizona State led 41-40 at halftime and led by as much as eight in the first half.
“We didn’t play that good in the first half,” Joseph said. “In the second half, we just had that sense of urgency that we need this win or we go home. And we played real good with our backs against the wall.
“We really needed this for the (NCAA) tournament, and this pretty much guarantees us. But we still want to win the Pac-10.”