The cardinal rule about facing No. 1 Stanford in its own backyard is to play a near-perfect game.
The Oregon men’s basketball team knew that coming in, but it could do nothing to stop the methodical domination of the top-ranked team in the nation.
Stanford blew past the Ducks Saturday afternoon, 100-76, in front of a sold-out crowd of 7,391 at Maples Pavilion, as well as a national audience watching on ABC.
The loss capped a miserable two-game road swing through the Bay Area that included a defeat at California Thursday. Oregon dropped to 10-3 overall and 1-2 in the Pacific-10 Conference, while the Cardinal improved to 15-0, 4-0.
Oregon has not won a game at Stanford since the 1986 season.
“They’re an awesome basketball team, as a lot of people are going to find out,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent told KUGN. “But at the same time, there’s some things that we could have done a lot better tonight, and a lot of that has to do with Stanford because they take you out of a lot of things. They’re just so doggone big all over the floor.”
On this afternoon, it was the deadly one-two punch of junior center Jason Collins down low and sophomore guard Casey Jacobsen from outside. Collins had his way with the Duck big men, scoring a career-high 24 points and grabbing 12 rebounds.
And whenever the Ducks did force Stanford to stray from the inside, Jacobsen made them pay, draining four threes en route to a 20-point game.
“Casey’s a pro,” Kent said. “He’s wasting time down here right now because I think he’s good enough to be playing there [in the NBA] right now. He has excellent range and has such a great feel for the game.”
Oregon started the game with aggression and took an early 4-0 lead after a Freddie Jones layin and a Bryan Bracey jumper. The Ducks stayed with the Cardinal, and were only down 21-15 after an Anthony Norwood free throw with 10:58 to play in the first half.
Stanford outscored Oregon 21-7 in the ensuing six minutes to open up the game for good. The Ducks would hang around for a bit in the second half, trailing the Cardinal by 15 at the 14:42 mark, but that would be the closest Oregon would get.
The Ducks were led in scoring by Bracey with 16 and Norwood with 14. Jones, who suffered through back pain, was limited to just two points in 15 minutes.
Kent continually shuffled his lineup, giving many of his players a chance to play. He was particularly impressed with his three freshman reserves, Luke Jackson (10 points, seven rebounds), James Davis (nine points) and Jay Anderson (seven points).
“Our young kids, Luke, Jay and James Davis, had a chance to get on the floor, and it was an opportunity for them to get some minutes,” Kent said. “[Jackson] needs more minutes. We need to play him more.”
Even when defeat was certain, Oregon’s reserves fought hard to the end. The Ducks traded baskets with the Cardinal in the last five minutes of the game, right down to Oregon’s final basket on a Davis three-pointer off a nice feed from guard David Jackson.
“If we had given this kind of effort on Thursday night, we would have won a ballgame,” Kent said. “We defended and we battled a lot tougher.”
Oregon returns to McArthur Court to face the Washington schools this week, beginning with the Huskies on Thursday night.
“We need to put it behind us, regroup and learn from this trip,” Kent said.