Amit Tamir answered the phone around 11 p.m. Friday at his Valley River Inn room and listened to the Oregon fan on the other end rant about how the Ducks were going to “get him” Saturday.
Tamir, one of the most successful Duck hunters in the Pacific-10 Conference, didn’t get abusive with the abusive fan.
“I just said, ‘OK, good luck tomorrow,’ and hung up the phone,” the 6-foot-11-inch Cal forward said.
Turns out the Ducks — and their phoning fans — could’ve used
the luck.
Cal’s “Big Three” of Tamir, Joe Shipp and Brian Wethers combined for 62 of the Bears’ 84 points Saturday to hand Oregon just its second loss at McArthur Court in 29 games. Oregon’s Lukes — Ridnour and Jackson — couldn’t match Cal’s firepower, scoring 28 points on 10-of-34 shooting with nine turnovers between them.
Perhaps the Lukes needed a motivational call, like most of the Bears received at their hotel Friday.
“I liked it. It was funny,” said Shipp, who had two prank calls to his room. “It was motivation to come out here and get a win, to get back at ’em.”
Cal head coach Ben Braun had a restless Friday night as well, for a different reason. He watched film of Oregon’s win over Stanford on Thursday, and didn’t enjoy what he saw.
“I don’t like watching Oregon on film,” Braun said. “I watched them dismantle Stanford, and I didn’t sleep well after that.”
But Braun’s game plan to stop Ridnour and Jackson — by no means an easy task — worked to near-perfection, and the Ducks (16-6 overall, 6-5 Pac-10) shot just 36.8 percent in the second half.
Shipp, the Pac-10’s scoring leader who had a game-high 23 points Saturday, held Jackson (nine points) in check defensively.
“We wanted to be physical with (Jackson) and get him out of his game,” Shipp said. “We didn’t let him get on a roll, and that affected him throughout the game. Our goal coming into the game was containing the two Lukes and I think we did a good job of that.”
Ridnour, too, had trouble with Cal’s switching defense, which prevented Oregon’s shooters from getting good open looks.
“We wanted to slow down Ridnour,” Wethers said. “He goes, they go.”
“They had a great game plan,” Ridnour said. “You have to give Cal credit for playing so well in Mac Court.”
After a slow first half, in which he scored just four points on 2-for-8 shooting, Tamir led the Bears’ offensive barrage in the second half, finishing with 18 points. In four games against Oregon, Tamir is averaging 25.3 points per game.
Cal (16-4, 9-2) shot 68.4 percent from the field in the second half, silencing the sold-out Mac Court crowd.
“(Cal) is as good as any team in the conference,” Oregon center Matt Short said. “We slowed down Tamir compared to what he usually does against us, but Wethers and Shipp were phenomenal.”
After getting swept in Arizona last week, Cal completed its sweep of Oregon and Oregon State to claim sole possession of second place in the conference, one game behind Arizona.
“(Mac Court) is one of the toughest courts in the country,” Tamir said. “We’re fighting for the Pac-10 title, and if you don’t win here, you aren’t going to win the Pac-10. Arizona did it, and we knew we needed to do it.”