With four minutes left in the game Saturday night, the Oregon student section was already chanting “Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!” urging Oregon head coach Dana Altman to sub in Duck walk-on guard Charlie Noeble.
It was that kind of game for Oregon as the Ducks cruised to an 85-43 win over the Oregon State Beavers in the 347th iteration of the Civil War. The win brought Oregon to 5-0 in Pac-12 play, while the Beavers dropped to 0-5 in the conference standings.
There were plenty of individual plays and numbers for Oregon fans to gush over: the margin of victory was the largest ever for the Ducks in a Civil War contest.
Jordan Bell recorded two blocks early in the first half, adding to his two massive dunks that didn’t technically count, which put the Matthew Knight Arena crowd of 12,364 in a frenzy.
Payton Pritchard shot 4-4 from 3-point range and finished with a team-best 17 points to add to what has already been a stellar freshman campaign.
But the stat that best illustrated why Oregon was so successful Saturday night was was 23; the amount of assists Oregon finished with. The Ducks assisted on 85 percent of their 27 field goals, including every one of their 11 3-pointers.
Oregon finished with just 11 turnovers and ended with an assist-to-turnover ratio that was better then 3/2 for the fourth consecutive game. The Ducks finished with more assists than the Beavers did total field goals.
All of the numbers add up to a bigger picture: Oregon’s ball improvement has improved tremendously since the Ducks’ non-conference slate, and as a result, they have become the offensive juggernaut many believed they could be at the start of the year.
“A lot of us are new, so a lot of us are still learning to play with each other,” Pritchard said. “Me and Dylan [Ennis] didn’t play last year, so obviously a lot of us didn’t know how to play with each other. So we’re just getting into the groove and we’re still making strides.”
Oregon’s current status as the conference leader in assist-to-turnover ratio is a far cry from where the Ducks were earlier in the preseason. After a 68-63 Oregon win over Boise State on Nov. 28, Oregon head coach Dana Altman said his team ‘looked bad’ and stated the Ducks were over-dribbling and trying to do too much in a game in which they finished with 15 turnovers to eight assists.
The Oregon squad that took the court on Saturday looks like an entirely different team.
Opponents stacked the key with loose zone defenses and dared the Ducks to shoot 3-pointers early in the year, and the strategy worked. Oregon struggled from long-range during many of its non-conference games, and the Ducks’ guards overcompensated by trying to force drives to the basket.
Now, the isolation play is all but gone, and Oregon has the second-most assists in the Pac-12 during conference play.
“I think Dillon Brooks has a lot to do with it,” Altman said. “Dillon had five assists. … I think he got us started right by giving it up a couple of times. He was really good in the open court and he finished three baskets where they fouled him before he got there.”
“Dillon got us started pretty good by moving the ball and I think that’s contagious. Once somebody gets it going, guys really take pride in making plays for their teammates.”
The Ducks lead the Pac-12 with a 2.4 assist-to-turnover ratio, and Pritchard (3.8) and Ennis (3.4) each rank in the top three in the conference individually in that category.
With Oregon’s ball-handlers now clicking with the rest of the offense, and Brooks shredding zone defenses through the middle, Oregon has gone from the conference’s worst team at moving the ball to its best.
Follow Jarrid Denney on Twitter @jarrid_denney