Coming into the 347th Civil War between No.13 Oregon (16-2) and Oregon State (4-14), Beaver fans were hoping for a repeat of last year’s first matchup between the two teams.
In 2016, Oregon State beat the Ducks on a rare off-night, 70-57 at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis. Oregon State was a talented team last season, but a win over the inevitable conference champions was still an upset.
A Beaver win on Saturday night would’ve been a substantially bigger upset than it was the year before. But after seven and a half minutes, it would be all too clear that a Beaver upset would not be happening.
Oregon started the game on a 21-0 run and never looked back, smashing Oregon State 85-43 in front of a sellout crowd at Matthew Knight Arena on Saturday night. The Ducks improved to 5-0 in conference and are now on a 14-game winning streak. The 42 point victory is the largest ever margin of victory in the Civil War.
“That’s how we want to start every game,” Oregon freshman guard Payton Pritchard said of their 21-0 run. “Everything is paying off in practice. … that’s just proof.”
Playing in his first Civil War, Pritchard, an Oregon native, scored a team-high 17 points to go along with five rebounds and two steals.
From the tip, Oregon was in control. A quick 7-0 run featuring a Dylan Ennis three and a thunderous Jordan Bell dunk forced Oregon State head coach Wayne Tinkle to call a timeout less than four minutes into the game. But the timeout had little effect against the Ducks’ blazing hot start. Oregon would go on to score 12 more points, forcing another Beaver timeout. By then, seven and a half minutes had passed and the damage had been done — the Ducks led 19-0.
In that span, Jordan Bell almost single-handedly stymied the Beavers offense. He collected three blocks, a steal and a hard dunk in traffic, firing up the sellout crowd and Oregon’s bench. His four steals in the game were a career-high.
“I thought our defensive intensity was very good to start the game,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said. “Jordan Bell was really good to start the ballgame. I just liked our activity the whole first half.”
Oregon finished the game with 12 blocks and a season-high 10 steals. Oregon State, who owns the worst scoring offense in the Pac-12, shot 17 percent from the field (4-of-24) in the first half. They ended the game with more turnovers (21) than field goals (16).
In previous games where Oregon has built a large lead early, they tend to let their foot of the gas later in the game, often letting their opponent hang around. But on Saturday night, the Ducks were better in that regard, thanks mainly to their “focus.”
“Just maintaining focus is big for us,” Oregon guard Casey Benson said. “Obviously we had that big run to start the game and we just want to get better no matter what the score is, whether we’re up 30 or whether its a tie game, it’s about getting better and continuing to make plays.”
Benson finished with 11 points and a was tied for the team lead with five assists while Dylan Ennis poured in 16 points, four rebounds and five assists. Dillon Brooks chipped in 11 points in 21 minutes. Brooks has played a total of 46 minutes over Oregon’s last three games but the Ducks have won all three by a combined 83 points.
Oregon welcomes the Northern California schools, Cal and Stanford to Matthew Knight next week.
Follow Gus Morris on Twitter @JustGusMorris