“Made too many mistakes to beat a good team,” head coach Dana Altman said in his postgame press conference. 

Oregon men’s basketball’s eight-game win streak and Big Ten Tournament run ended in a 74-64 loss to the one-seeded Michigan State Spartans. The Ducks fell behind the ball at every turn and got out-hustled by Tom Izzo’s defensive team. 

Basketball is often called a “game of runs,” which was exemplified by each of these teams. The Spartans’ late-game 15-0 run proved the final and most significant one of the day. 

Oregon’s 4-19 mark from three-point territory didn’t help matters. 

“We had some pretty good looks, we just didn’t hit them. Shooting the ball is a big part of the game and we needed someone to shoot some threes and we just didn’t do it,” Altman said. 

The Spartans came out running as soon as the clock started. Fierce defense on the perimeter and subpar Oregon shot-making characterized the early portion of the game. 

The Ducks looked like a team that played the previous day, while Michigan State relished its five-day long break — the Spartans started the game on an 8-0 run. 

Oregon forced a turnover directly after the first media timeout, and Brandon Angel converted on the other end from the low block as proof of life. 

It appeared that it only took five minutes for the Ducks to wake up. 

After an initial stretch where Oregon shot 2-5, it picked the offense back up by making six of the next seven. Nate Bittle settled into the game much more quickly against the Spartans and added nine points in the opening frame. 

Bittle led the way for Oregon and tallied 22 points, 11 rebounds and two blocks. 

“Today, I just tried to do my job,” Bittle said. “We fought hard as a team and we know what we need to do going forward.”

Michigan State, the worst three-point shooting team in the regular season based on percentage, made four of its six attempts from beyond the arc in the first. That proved to be the difference in a back-and-forth first half which saw each offense gain a foothold at times. 

The Spartan’s relentless on-ball pressure and commitment to getting the ball into transition as quickly as possible often put the Ducks on their back foot. Teams on their back foot don’t tend to hustle well. 

“We didn’t go after the ball,” Altman said. “They picked up loose balls, they were quicker to it and we had to have everyone on the boards and we didn’t.”

That was evidenced in the first through the considerable rebounding margin, as MSU doubled Oregon in rebounding 18-9 to begin the contest. Further, the Ducks didn’t grab a single offensive rebound in the opening half, while the Spartans grabbed six. 

Michigan State only made that into a 36-29 margin for the game, but that was largely due to the stretch where the Spartans took a double-digit advantage. 

“That’s not something we can do against a good team if we want to win,” Bittle said about the rebounding margin. 

The mistakes and lack of hustle compounded on itself as the first drew to a close. 

Michigan State ended the half on a 7-0 run, which included four Oregon turnovers in three minutes. The Ducks also couldn’t contest without fouling, as their nine fouls against gave the Spartans 10 attempts from the line in the first. 

Michigan State took a 42-32 lead at the break.

In the opening three minutes, Oregon scored the first six points of the half and reversed the narrative by forcing four Spartan turnovers in that stretch. 

The difference in effort between the first and second halves was drastic. Oregon started fighting for every loose ball, every rebound and every single point in the latter half of the quarterfinal. 

For example, the Ducks didn’t grab an offensive rebound until about five minutes into the second half. That came on a Bittle and-one that also scored Oregon’s first second-chance points. 

The Ducks then failed to score for the next five minutes while Michigan State took a 15-0 run a little less than halfway through the second. That was good to put the Spartans ahead by 16. 

“We got within one and they scored [15] in a row, we didn’t get the stops, and took some really contested shots,” Altman said. 

Oregon’s newest scoring drought put the nail in the coffin in its chances to pull off a shocking upset and move on in the conference tournament. A loss to the regular season conference champion in the quarterfinals would be no shameful end to the season for any eight-seed. 

But, this isn’t the end of the road for this iteration of Altman’s Ducks. 

The Ducks’ impressive regular season showing was good enough to lock them into a spot in March Madness. It’s going to have to look much different than it did on Friday for Oregon to make a run. 

Oregon cut into single-digits within the final five minutes on multiple occasions, but it wasn’t meant to be. The Ducks would not play cinderella today. 

The Spartans closed out the contest 74-64 and moved onto the Semifinals. 

Oregon now awaits its fate, which will be decided on Selection Sunday.