It’s Ducks football that traditionally struggles in the desert, but it was Oregon men’s basketball that was left stranded without an oasis in Tucson on Saturday morning. In a game pitched as a winnable Quad-1 matchup for head coach Dana Altman’s team, the Wildcats were anything but manageable. The Ducks (19-10, 11-7 Pac-12) fell, 103-83 to Arizona (23-6, 14-4 Pac-12) and are left adrift from a conference that looks to be gaining momentum ahead of postseason play.
The Ducks braved the early flurry of speed from the Wildcats, but wasted the extra possessions that they grabbed in that time — Jermaine Couisnard and Jackson Shelstad both missed 3-point efforts with time left on the clock instead of pushing for 2-point chances.
Meanwhile, Caleb Love began to heat up. The presumptive 2024 NBA pick opened 5-for-5 as Arizona jumped out to an early lead, and headed to the bench at the second media timeout with nine points. Everything was falling for Arizona — there was a 36% discrepancy between the two teams’ shooting percentages by the time Ducks head coach Dana Altman called a timeout at the 10:28 mark in the midst of a 20-5 run.
The unprovoked errors continued to pile up: an N’Faly Dante carry went out of bounds and Kylan Boswell tipped a ball out of Kario Oquendo’s hands. That early bravery was all-but-forgotten, and the Ducks were quickly getting run out of the gym.
Part of that was the ostensibly unsustainable clip at which Arizona was shooting — as high as 74% in the first half — but it was on Oregon, too. By the end of the first half, the Ducks hadn’t found a single point off the bench, nor could it control the paint (outrebounded 20-14). The deficit was 21. Every time that Oregon was able to make a shot, it seemed that it would give up points even quicker. Any time that it tried to put a run together, it was drowned as soon as Boswell or Love, who combined were outscoring the Ducks at the half, were within splashing range.
The second half was more of the same. Any effort that Oregon could muster was matched: an 8-for-9 field goal run in the second half saw Arizona go 6-for-6 in the same time. Leading that run was Jermaine Couisnard, who had 14 second-half points by the 10:28 mark to cut the Wildcat lead to 15 at the same time.
The stops would have to come, though, and any hope of that would come to a grinding halt when Dante collapsed to the floor after Jadrian Tracey landed on his ankle, forcing the Malian center to hobble off the court. He wouldn’t return, and without him and only seven available scholarship players, the slope increased even more.
Couisnard continued to push the Ducks — the 3-point shots that wouldn’t fall in the first half began to go for the senior guard, and he’d finish with 39 points, but the deficit remained 20-plus. A Caleb Love windmill dunk in transition seemed to effectively end the game, and six minutes later, with the walk-ons on the court, it was.
The Ducks have two games left before the Pac-12 Tournament: Colorado and Utah, both at Matthew Knight Arena. Oregon lost to both on its mountain road trip earlier in the season, but wins could push the team into a favorable position ahead of the postseason. The Buffs come to town on March 7 at 6:00 PM, before Senior Night against the Utes on March 9 at 4:00 PM.
