The hex.
McArthur Court has been a dangerous place for UCLA basketball teams in the last seven years. Some of the most painful losses in Bruin history have come at the hands of Oregon and the boisterous Mac Court fans.
Flashback to 1995, when UCLA suffered only two losses — one at Mac Court at the hands of Kenya Wilkins — en route to an NCAA championship. More recently, the Bruins suffered one of their most lopsided losses at The Pit in a 15-point Oregon win last season.
No longer.
UCLA dominated early in Thursday night’s game, then held on for a 15-point win of its own.
“Oregon is definitely the toughest place to get a road win at,” UCLA center Dan Gadzuric said. “It’s a great place to play at. This is one of those special wins.”
Gadzuric and frontcourt mates Matt Barnes and Jason Kapono were able to ignore the taunts and jeers from McArthur Court’s infamous Pit Crew for a combined 57 points and 29 rebounds to lead the Bruins over Oregon, 88-73.
The difference between this year’s game and past UCLA losses at Oregon was the Bruins’ frontcourt dominance.
“The plan was to come out, put pressure on the boards and contain [Bryan] Bracey and [Freddie] Jones,” UCLA coach Steve Lavin said. “Defensively, the press was effective and we created a nice rhythm on the floor.”
“It was just one of our goals to control rebounding and the paint,” said Barnes, who ended all scoring with a monstrous windmill dunk.
The Bruins jumped out to an early 11-point lead, most of which came from layins from offensive rebounds.
“Not all of our shots were falling, but we had all those second-chance points,” Gadzuric said. “I just think we had a lot of great offensive rebounding opportunities.”
Six minutes into the second quarter, the Bruins had their largest lead of the game at 19 points. UCLA thought it had finally broken the Mac Court hex.
“Whenever you’re up by 20 points at Oregon you’re surprised,” Lavin said. “No lead is too big at Mac Court. You know [Oregon] is going to make a run. You just hope to be able to withstand it.”
That’s when Oregon started a run that looked like so many other game-winning runs against UCLA teams in the past. The Bruins’ corps of big men who had been so effective in the first quarter went scoreless for more than six minutes of play.
Unfortunately, the run ran out of gas.
“Their press fatigued our legs and didn’t allow us to make those shots we needed,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “And that’s credit to their big guys and their style of play. Barnes and Kapono made a huge difference in the game.”
“We ran around so much and kept throwing bodies at them,” Barnes said. “We’d be controlling the ball for like 30 seconds. It takes a lot out of a team.”
After starting the game strongly and dropping off in the middle, Barnes, Kapono and Gadzuric all finished the game strongly, hitting key free throws. Kapono went eight-for-nine from the free-throw line to put a dagger in Oregon’s comeback hopes.
Barnes finished the game with 21 points, eight rebounds and three steals, his highest output since UCLA’s 98-88 win over the Ducks on Jan. 27.
The win is only UCLA’s third in the last seven years.