Feeling flustered, depressed and confused, the Oregon men’s basketball players spent 30 minutes Thursday night coming to grips with the reality that first place had slipped from their grasp.
The No. 19 Ducks had just been lowered off their pedestal in a humbling 97-92 loss to the less-talented Washington Huskies at Bank of America Arena in Seattle.
Oregon dropped to 14-5 overall and 6-2 in the Pacific-10 Conference and witnessed its Northwest rival Huskies celebrate a potential season-changing win that improved them to 7-11 and only 2-7 in league play.
But a half hour after the game, the Ducks slid right back to the top of the unpredictable Pac-10 thanks to California’s 92-91 overtime victory over Southern California, leaving the Trojans tied with the Ducks at 6-2.
Still, first place status aside, Oregon’s stumble against Washington exposed the weakness of this Ducks team that had been kept hidden during the recent winning streak. In road losses at Massachusetts, Portland, Minnesota and Arizona State, the Ducks failed to turn a close game in the final minutes in their direction.
While Oregon showed it could do that within the comforts of McArthur Court, the Ducks couldn’t follow their own advice and prove they could do the same on the road.
“We just talked about this in the locker room where I said, ‘Fellas, I don’t know if you realize this, but we’re playing for a Pac-10 championship, we’re playing for the number one seed in the West (bracket of the NCAA Tournament),” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said. “That’s what’s at stake. That should be enough of an urgency for us to come ready to play.”
Oregon’s last lead of the game Thursday was 81-80 with 3:00 to play. That was the 11th lead change since Oregon jumped ahead 60-59 for its first advantage since scoring the first points of the game.
In the final three minutes, the Huskies took the lead and kept it for good after making 11 of their final 12 free throws to seal the five-point win.
“They were a better team than us tonight and that shouldn’t happen,” Kent said. “They hit some big clutch free throws in the end and that all goes back to the confidence they got in the beginning. We certainly didn’t come out with guns a’blazin’.”
True, while Oregon failed down the stretch, it was given a wake-up call in the opening minutes of the game when the Huskies came out with more energy, more focus and more desire than the Ducks.
The Ducks missed layups, including one wide-open one by Luke Jackson on a fast break. They had baskets called back because of offensive goaltending. And they basically just had a lot of shots clang off the rim as Oregon connected on just five of its first 15 shot attempts.
Washington capitalized and used a 16-5 run to take an early 27-16 lead that set the tone for the rest of the game.
Oregon eventually found its offensive rhythm and received some impressive performances. Freddie Jones led the Ducks with 27 points in 39 minutes of floor time, while Luke Ridnour returned to his home state and tied his career-high with 23 points and seven assists with many family and friends among the 7,009 in attendance.
Jackson contributed 18 and Brian Helquist chipped in 10 as he filled in nicely for foul-plagued Chris Christoffersen, who only played 13 minutes.
So the offense was there. It was particularly the defense on Washington forward Doug Wrenn that was missing. Wrenn, a transfer from Connecticut, poured in a career-high 32 points that included emphatic two-handed dunks, fadeaway jumpers, clutch late game free throws, rebound putbacks and even a three-pointer.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Washington because they played their best game of the year, but that team only averages 66 points a game and we gave up 97 points,” Kent said. “That’s not a very good defensive effort. The energy level they played at was so superior to our energy level.”
Kent and the still-first place Ducks hope to change that at 3 p.m. Saturday when they take on last-place Washington State.
“We need to get a split on this trip,” Kent said.