Oregon returned to McArthur Court for the first time in nearly a month
and emphatically returned to the win column.
Playing for the first time at home since Nov. 17, the Oregon men’s
basketball team rolled to a workmanlike 88-64 victory against Pepperdine on Friday in front of 6,881 fans.
The Ducks began their season 4-0, but had lost their last three games on the road by a total of eight points. The latest defeat came on Monday at Minnesota in a 75-72 defeat that Oregon believed it should have won.
“We are eight points away from being undefeated,” Oregon head
coach Ernie Kent said.
Pepperdine grabbed the Ducks’ (5-3) attention as the Waves (4-4) had
already defeated both UCLA and Southern California on the road, giving them a tremendous confidence boost under first-year coach Paul Westphal.
But on Friday, the Ducks set the tone early and kept pouring it on, with guard Freddie Jones leading the way with 21 points. With those points, Jones, who didn’t start the game, moved from 19th to 16th on the Oregon career-scoring chart with 1,101 total points.
Three other Ducks scored in double figures with point guard Luke Ridnour contributing a career-high 20 points. Luke Jackson added 12 and Robert Johnson had another solid game with 11 points and eight rebounds.
Pepperdine began the game keeping pace with Oregon and took the early 7-6 lead, but it wouldn’t lead again. The Ducks started feeding off their crowd and held the 41-29 halftime advantage.
From there, Oregon did what it hadn’t been able to do in the three
previous games: hold on to a lead. And not only did they keep the lead, the Ducks extended it. Oregon opened the second half with a 12-4 run and never looked back.
The most glaring statistic came in the rebounding department with Oregon dominating the boards, 54-28, against Pepperdine. Often times, a key rebound would lead to a quick outlet pass that would turn into a three-pointer that helped put the Waves away.
Six Ducks knocked down a trey, Jones with three and Ridnour with two, as the team shot 9-of-22 from beyond the arc. On the other end of the floor, Pepperdine converted just 4-of-22 three-point attempts en route to shooting a dismal 31.7 percent from the floor for the game.
Joey Harrington and many other Oregon football players were spotted in
the student section enjoying the game. The second-ranked Ducks football team plays No. 3 Colorado in the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona.
But until then, the Oregon hoops team has some serious work to do with
Pacific-10 Conference play getting underway. The Ducks have one final tune-up against Northern Arizona at home Sunday before hosting Arizona State on Thursday and Arizona on Dec. 22.