The Oregon men’s basketball team continued its surprising run in the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament Thursday, defeating UCLA 76-59 to advance to the semifinals.
Oregon (16-16, 7-11 Pac-10) shot 49.1 percent from the field for the game, while UCLA (22-10, 13-5 Pac-10) shot just 35.2 percent in a shocking upset. It was Oregon’s first win over UCLA in the 2010-2011 season, having dropped the first two matchups.
Still, head coach Dana Altman could see that his players were not intimidated coming into the game.
“Our guys had confidence coming in,” Altman told Pac-10.org. “Both times we played them before we had a lead … we were leading by eight or nine at UCLA, and their physicality wore us down. But our guys felt good at the end of this game.”
As they had in the previous two meetings with UCLA, the Ducks got off to an impressive start in the first half. Sophomore forward E.J. Singler continued his hot shooting early on, accounting for seven of Oregon’s first nine points.
The teams traded points until the 7:30 mark, when senior forward Joevan Catron hit two free throws to give the Ducks a 23-19 lead. From that point on, Oregon outscored the Bruins 15-5, capped off by a buzzer beating three-pointer by junior guard Garrett Sim to give the Ducks a 38-24 lead at halftime.
Though Oregon’s shooting trailed off from Wednesday night, the defense more than made up for it in the first half. UCLA made just six field goals before intermission, good for a woeful 25 percent.
“That set the tone for the whole game,” assistant coach Kevin McKenna told Jerry Allen. “Guys were just communicating better, talking better, moving better.”
Singler led the way for Oregon with 11 first half points, while Sim followed with eight.
There would be no second-half collapse for Oregon this time around. If anything, the Ducks only became stronger after the break.
This time, guard Malcolm Armstead set the tone. The junior scored nine of the first 11 points of the half for Oregon, and he assisted on the other.
“I thought Malcolm controlled the game,” McKenna said. “I really think from a point guard position, he set the tone. He was aggressive, but he picked his spots.”
Singler, meanwhile, continued to pour in the buckets, scoring seven straight points at one point and breaking 20 for only the second time in his career with over nine minutes remaining.
By that point, the Ducks held a commanding 62-40 lead, and UCLA would never recover. The Bruins came as close as 14 points, but Oregon simply refused to let up and ended up cruising to the finish line to advance to the semifinals.
When the final whistle blew, Singler had another career-high with 24 points to go along with seven rebounds and three steals. Armstead finished with 13 points, six rebounds, and five assists, while Sim added 10 points.
“We really executed our offense well tonight,” Singler told Pac-10.org. “I got open shots and tried to be really aggressive.”
For UCLA, sophomore forward Tyler Honeycutt led the way with 19 points and seven rebounds. Sophomore forward Reeves Nelson’s struggles against the Ducks continued, as he finished with just seven points on 3-9 shooting to go along with 10 rebounds. Freshman behemoth Joshua Smith, meanwhile, added five points and six rebounds.
“Our team was not ready to play today, that was really obvious,” UCLA head coach Ben Howland told Pac-10.org. “And that’s really frustrating and disappointing because we’ve won 13 of our last 16 games.”
Oregon will move on to play tonight in the tournament semifinal. For the Ducks, it is just another chance to prove their worth.
“We’ve been the underdog all year long,” Singler said. “Coming into this tournament, we wanted to show the Pac-10 we can play.”
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