Oregon men’s basketball defeated UT Arlington in a sparsely crowded Matthew Knight Arena, 67-47, on Sunday night. Oregon’s defense was far from perfect but they held the Mavericks to 23% shooting from the field. However, Oregon will need to clean up its turnovers if they want to defeat a talented Houston squad on Friday.

Payton Pritchard carried the offense

The senior point guard was Oregon’s number one scoring option heading into the season and he proved it again on Sunday. He was 10 of 16 from the field for 24 points. Pritchard showed off his full offensive arsenal as he nailed a mid-range jumper and sunk a couple 3-pointers. But Pritchard is the most effective when he drives to the basket for layups. In the passing game, Pritchard tossed a well placed cross court pass to Will Richardson for a 3-pointer.  What was perhaps unexpected was the he also led the team with eight rebounds.
“He’s got the ball in his hands so much, he has to set the tone. He took the ball to the basket and I thought he did a lot of good,” head coach Dana Altman said. 

Oregon struggles finding an offensive groove 

After an 18 turnover performance on Tuesday against Memphis, the Ducks turned the ball over 10 times against UT Arlington. Oregon made multiple errant passes that led to turnovers. The biggest culprits were Pritchard with three and Richardson with two. The Ducks passing in general was sloppy and lethargic. This sloppiness led to long dry spells on offense, with the Ducks not making a single basket between 3:48 in the first half and 18:05 in the second half. Fortunately, for the Ducks, the Mavericks struggled to shoot the 3-ball and could not punish the Ducks for their mistakes.

“I didn’t like the ball movement. I thought we were up and down,” Altman said.

Oregon’s defense kept the Mavericks in check

Oregon’s defense was able to hold the Mavericks to 23% shooting. Oregon’s frontcourt was too big for UT Arlington to handle and they were not able to score in the paint. The Ducks registered five blocked shots in the game with two of them coming from Chandler Lawson. The Mavericks are a 3-point shooting team, however they went a paltry 6 of 30 from beyond the arch. Some of that success came from running three point shooters off the three point line, but often the Mavericks would miss wide open threes. 
“We knew we had to run them off the line and make them finish at the rim against our bigs,” Richardson said. 

The Ducks will need to work on boxing out their opponents. Too often, especially in the first half, the Duck were unable to secure the rebound and it left the door open for UT Arlington to mount a comeback. The Mavericks had 13 offensive rebounds, but only nine second chance points. 

“Our physicality on the boards has got to be better, a shot would go up and the guys would run to the bucket and the ball went right over our heads a couple of times,” Altman said.