When Oregon men’s basketball (9-17, 2-13 Big Ten) fell to the Minnesota Golden Gophers (12-14, 5-10 Big Ten) on Tuesday night, it was a game decided in large part by defense. The first half proved especially low scoring and it was the Ducks’ inability to defend the Gophers in the second half that took them out of the game.

Minnesota led 22-17 at halftime and both teams had fewer than 10 field goals and combined for 15 turnovers. Oregon shot 7/23 from the floor while Minnesota shot 9/30.

“We just stood straight up and down, and didn’t attack (their zone),” head coach Dana Altman said. “We couldn’t hang shots, we took a couple bad ones early, which I think got us off on the wrong foot, and didn’t throw the ball inside nearly enough in the first half.”

The Ducks had just five scorers in this game. Nate Bittle scored 15 points, Kwame Evans Jr. 13 points, Dezdri Lindsay eight points, Sean Stewart six points and Wei Lin two points. This was largely due to them rushing their possessions and not finding the right looks closer to the basket, especially in the first half.

“We had some good looks,” Altman said. “We didn’t hit them. We got off a couple quick ones early that I thought took us out of rhythm. We didn’t look inside. Very ineffective and sloppy.”

In the second half, the offenses picked up their pace a bit more, especially Minnesota. Both teams had 13 field goals in the second half, but the Gophers made six 3-pointers while the Ducks had just one. They played just six players the whole game, but four of them reached double figures.

“The thing that bothers me most is the minus 10 on the boards,” Altman said. “That really hurts. It wasn’t that they got a lot of second chance points or anything, but that’s something we thought we could get.”

Oregon had the size advantage in this game, but that did not translate to the court. Minnesota out rebounded the Ducks 38-28 while grabbing 13 offensive rebounds, one of which came off of a missed free throw. On the other side, Oregon had just six offensive boards.

“We thought we had to get offensive rebounds,” Altman said. “Especially against that zone, we just didn’t get any. We didn’t get any offensive rebounds from our wings. In an area we thought we’d have an advantage with the zone, we thought we’d get some offensive rebounds and we didn’t get them.”

While the Ducks’ offense was slightly better in the second half, their defense was much stronger in the first half. The Gophers shot 13/25 from the floor in the second half, which was 22 percent higher than in the first half.

“Defensively in the first half, I thought we kept ourselves in the game,” Altman said. “The second half wasn’t nearly as active.”

Oregon’s schedule does not get any easier in the final weeks of the season. It will need to take a big step up offensively by sharpening its shot selections and battling on the boards to have any hope of getting in the win column again.

The Ducks travel to Los Angeles to face the USC Trojans Saturday, Feb. 21 at 1:00 p.m.