Words cannot describe the emotions that ran through McArthur Court Thursday night.
I’m drained, and I’m just a reporter.
Yes, the Ducks lost, 69-62, to No. 2 Stanford. But it was quite possibly the most magical loss in the two seasons of Oregon basketball that I have witnessed.
Forget the rest of the season. Forget what this game means in “the big picture,” or where the Ducks stand as a team following this game. For a few moments Thursday, the Ducks were kings.
With 6:56 left in the game, a media time-out was called.
Right then, right there, was a moment the Ducks should have taken a snapshot of so they could pull it out of the wallet whenever times got tough.
Oregon was playing unselfish, exciting basketball. The Ducks were denying Stanford’s big men, confusing its shooters and hitting their own shots with an extra flourish.
Surely, the Oregon players must have realized then that they were at the peak of their game. Mac Court was rocking. The fans hoped, prayed and screamed for a miracle that wasn’t going to happen.
Miracles need a little help, and the Cardinal wouldn’t budge. Stanford was too deep, too experienced and just too No. 2 in the nation for Oregon. As big man after big man went to the Duck bench with foul trouble, Stanford went on a 13-0 run as if to make sure the crowd knew it was 20-1 for a reason.
“We just wanted to take it possession by possession,” Stanford guard Casey Jacobsen said. “We worried about the next 30 seconds.”
Before the Stanford run, before the foul trouble, the Ducks were on top. They played the Cardinal exactly the way UCLA did last Saturday: without fear. They tossed out history and just played good basketball. They played with a confidence that escaped them last Sunday against Arizona State.
Most importantly, Oregon seemed to come together on the floor Thursday night. Freddie Jones made big plays, Luke Ridnour drained threes, Bryan Bracey did everything but mop the floor after falling down, and Chris Christoffersen once again sparked the team off the bench.
It’s hard to be as positive as Oregon head coach Ernie Kent, but the Ducks seemed to look deep within themselves and pull out a little magic against Stanford.
“We played 34 or 35 minutes of just great basketball,” Kent said. “We executed our game plan, played well defensively and did what we wanted to do.”
It’s easy to think that if a few more things had gone their way, the Ducks might have won Thursday’s game and made the first five minutes of SportsCenter. If they had taken a few more free throws — they took only seven — or if Christoffersen hadn’t picked up two cheap fouls late, perhaps they could’ve pulled off their second top-10 upset in a week.
“If we had just held on a little longer we would have won that game,” Bracey said.
But it wasn’t meant to be. Stanford was simply not fazed by the louder-than-ever Pit Crew. Despite shaking baskets, the Cardinal made seven of eight free throws in the last minute of play, and didn’t miss a field goal in the final 9:09.
“When it gets rough, we always find a way to win,” Jacobsen said.
The Cardinal is now 7-0 on the road this season, and 21-1 overall.
As the Ducks walked off the court after Thursday’s game, the remaining crowd applauded them for their efforts against a very good Stanford team. The round was deserved for a Duck team that, for just a few minutes, played like champions.