Over the past weeks, Aaron Brooks has carried the team through rough stretches during games and Saturday’s 92-84 victory over Cal was no different.
With Oregon (18-1 overall, 6-1 Pacific-10 Conference) down by eight at the half, Brooks scored eight points in less than three minutes to tie the score at 48 and send McArthur Court into a frenzy.
“The crowd really got into it when we made some plays,” Brooks said. “It’s good to have them all back. We’ve missed them for a while.”
Brooks had a game high 22 points on 8-of-12 shooting, including making 4 of 5 from the three point line.
When asked about why no one has seen Brooks play this dominantly before, Malik Hairston said this is what Brooks has been like for as long as he’s known him.
“First, let me say, past couple of years, you guys haven’t seen Aaron Brooks,” Hairston said. “This is Aaron Brooks. Aaron Brooks is a dominant player; he has a great feel for the game, and he makes big shots. He has a passion for winning, just like the rest of these guys.”
Toward the end of the game, Brooks chatted with Cal’s Ayinde Ubaka, a former high school rival, joking that Cal wasn’t going to trump Oregon this year.
“I was telling him we finally got them,” Brooks said. “They beat us three in a row and Ubaka hit some amazing shots to beat us, and I was like ‘Not this time’.”
Oregon had each of its starters reach double figures in points, something Oregon coach Ernie Kent had seen during the team’s summer trip in the Bahamas.
“What a terrific stat sheet,” Kent said. “That’s how the stat sheet looked in the Bahamas.”
The victory also saw Hairston become more of a factor as he continued to heal from his foot injury. Hairston scored 19 points and had a leaping dunk from the left baseline while being fouled in the process.
“As good as that dunk looked, I still see a guy that’s not 100 percent,” Kent said.
Kent hopes that the dunk was a sign of things to come from Hairston, believing that once he is healthy and in shape, he’ll be able to make the Oregon team even more potent.
“Malik can take us to another level,” Kent said. “He’s got a lot more basketball in him.”
The Ducks struggled in the first half mainly because of Cal’s ability to score on offensive rebounds. The Bears scored 18 points on nine offensive rebounds while Oregon managed to score only three second-chance points.
After halftime, the Ducks grabbed a few more rebounds, scoring 11 second-chance points and limited Cal to two.
Oregon’s fifth consecutive Pac-10 win marks the team’s longest league winning streak in five seasons, but the Ducks aren’t letting any of the success get to their heads.
“We’ve seen with the football team, they lost a couple of games and all the accolades they had – no one really cared about them,” Brooks said. “You lose a couple and you’re down in the dirt again. So we keep it in perspective.”
[email protected]