Oregon Ducks men’s basketball just can’t catch a break.
First, the injury bug struck the squad like lightning, suddenly and devastatingly, which led into this current losing streak; now increased to seven games in a row. The latest, a 73-57 whimper of a loss at home to UCLA, who exploited the injuries and overall disjointedness to a dominant performance on the interior.
While, statistically, the Bruins only outscored the Ducks 40-34 in the paint, the disparity can be shown in the amount of free throws each team shot, and the fact that UCLA shot below 40 percent from the field throughout the game.
The Bruins ran a remarkable amount of pick-and-roll, which played to their size advantage, pronounced by the fact the Ducks didn’t employ a healthy true center. In the first half, Oregon survived off of pure luck. They let UCLA play the game it wanted — pick and rolls and low post play that leads to open threes — but the Bruins just couldn’t hit shots inside consistently.
“The (frontcourt) guys got it going there. (Donovan) Dent got it going there, he had 15, it was a team effort. We held them to 39% (from the field) and 38% from three, they just got to the line more than we did. It’s pretty hard to guard them at the free throw line,” head coach Dana Altman said.
UCLA shot 23 free throws (of which it made 20), while Oregon shot just nine, and it was evident why: the Ducks didn’t play aggressively at all. Their lack of size became a problem and slowly wore down the bulk of the Oregon defense.
“Our ball movement wasn’t good, we took some bad shots. Guys tried to get something going and just rushed some things, took some really tough shots,” Altman said.
The Bruins attacked Oregon’s lone star Kwame Evans Jr. early and often behind the powerful post-up play of Tyler Bilodeau and Eric Dailey Jr., who combined for the first six UCLA points. The frontcourt duo would become a key cog in an offense that seemed hell-bent on winning a paint battle.
“(Evans) really tried to compete, 39 minutes wore him out there,” Altman said.
Their constant, tough screens and determination to pack the paint on every play left point guard Donovan Dent a ton of options. Dent shot 6/17 from the field and tallied 15 points, but the large part of his impact came from his ability to control the tempo as a ball handler.
He also forced the action when it wasn’t there — like near the end of the first half when he drove in after going the opposite direction of a screen, picking up a couple defenders in the middle of the paint and finishing a tough floater.
Even when he didn’t score on those plays (he didn’t much in the first half), UCLA was able to use its size to grab offensive rebounds. While Oregon only lost the offensive rebounding battle 12-11, the Bruins’ ability to score off those second chances proved crucial.
“(On) second chance points, we lost 19-5, we got 11 offensive rebounds, but we just didn’t do anything with them. They turned theirs into points, and that 19-5 difference there was huge,” Altman said.
Oregon’s only moment of hope came after an 8-0 run during the second half after a UCLA field goal drought of almost four minutes; it was capped off by an emphatic Sean Stewart steal and dunk on the other end. That almost brought the Ducks, and the crowd for that matter, back into the game, but it didn’t even get them within single-digits.
Another Dent score off a pick and roll silenced the crowd and set the Bruins back on track.
Back on track meant that UCLA didn’t let the Ducks get any closer throughout the rest of the contest.
