SPOKANE Wash. – Be it nerves or the style of play Friday, Oregon’s opening round game of the NCAA Tournament certainly wasn’t a thing of beauty.
The third-seeded Ducks fell behind 9-0 less than three minutes into the game against the 14th-seed Miami (OH) RedHawks before storming back and eventually surviving with a 58-56 grind-it-out victory to advance to the second round of the Midwest Region in Spokane, Wash. where they’ll face 11th-seeded Winthrop on Sunday.
“It wasn’t pretty, but it’s exactly what we expected,” senior point guard Aaron Brooks said. “To get the win, that’s great.”
And great for the Ducks just to escape this opening-round game, the first NCAA Tournament experience for every player on the Oregon roster except senior Adam Zahn, who was a redshirt freshman in 2003 during Oregon’s last appearance.
The expected jitters were evident from the start when the scrappy RedHawks scored four easy buckets inside and cashed in a free throw to take a 9-0 lead.
“It’s our first time here, so it was important for us to just get a good sweat going and see a couple of shots fall,” junior guard Bryce Taylor said. “Just make those pregame or early game jitters go away. So I feel like now we got our first game out of the way and we have seen that it’s going to be very competitive.”
Brooks led the Ducks with 18 points, Taylor added 14 and Maarty Leunen scored 13 points.
Tim Pollitz, Miami’s leadings scorer, finished with a team-high 21 points to lead the RedHawks and guard Michael Bramos added 18 points.
Miami effectively slowed the pace of the game down against the much quicker and more athletic Ducks. Each team managed just 44 shots in the game, with Miami shooting slightly better at 47.7 percent to 43.2 percent for the Ducks.
But Oregon won the battle at the free throw line by hitting 15 of 17, including on a pair of crucial trips late, while Miami made just 7 of 10.
“They’re a very difficult team to play against, that style of play,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said. “Very similar to Washington State. But for us, we’re 17 games now coming down to single digits and we’re 13-4 in those games and it just became a game that we had to grind out and finish off at the end.”
After falling behind early, the Ducks captured the lead on the strength of a 20-0 run, much in part to an effective match-up zone that limited the RedHawks inside game mostly consisting of Pollitz. Oregon led 25-20 at the break and never trailed the rest of the way.
“The match-up zone gave us a lot of energy to go on that 20-0 run and once you got to that point, you thought it would be a grind it out game but you always felt like you were in control of the game, you were going to win the game,” Kent said.
Though the Ducks led the entire second half, there was never room for comfort. Miami cut the lead to one at 37-36 on five straight from Pollitz. The Ducks followed that with a 9-2 run to take a 46-38 lead after a Taylor jumper with 9:38 remaining. A Taylor three gave Oregon a 54-43 lead with 4:58 to play but the RedHawks again cut it to one after Pollitz scored inside with 46 seconds remaining in the game.
The Ducks put the ball in the hands of Brooks, the trusty point guard who’s hit multiple big shots for the Ducks this season, and he came through once again.
Brooks drove the ball on the right side of the key and was fouled. He calmly nailed both free throws.
“He did a great job of running the show,” guard Malik Hairston said. “He was the floor general tonight. He penetrated, he made great plays, he made the right plays…he did a great job.”
An off-balance heave by Bramos from deep three-point range to tie rimmed short, barely.
Leunen was fouled on the rebound with two seconds remaining and connected on a pair of crucial free throws to ice the game. The free throws proved crucial when Bramos nailed a shot from half court to end the game and cut the final deficit to 58-56.
“I was relieved just because they were capable of beating us as they showed,” Taylor said. “As you see year after year, anybody can beat anybody. It’s one of those things, we’re just happy to get out with a win.
“We got our first game out of the way. We can’t be nervous anymore.”
Oregon expects another fight Sunday against Winthrop, which upset sixth-seeded Notre Dame earlier Friday. The Eagles, after giving up a 20-point lead, held on for a 74-64 victory, Winthrop’s first-ever tournament win.
The good news for the Ducks – they won’t be playing another slow-it-down team like Miami.
“They get up and down more,” Taylor said of Winthrop. “They seemed like they’re more of a running team. It seems like they’re more explosive.
“We prefer to get up and down and be able to run and gun and share the ball.”
The Ducks are slightly familiar with the Eagles having faced them during the 2004 season, a 71-56 Oregon victory in Eugene. Brooks had 25 points and Hairston scored 17 as the Ducks improved to 7-1 at that point. Winthrop guard Torrell Martin scored 12 points in that game against the Ducks. He scored 20 against the Irish Friday while 6-foot-10, 242-pound center Craig Bradshaw scored 24.
“The main thing is to win, move on,” Kent said. “I feel like we’ll play better Sunday now that we’ve got a game under our belts.”