Oregon made all 16 of its free-throw attempts in the final two minutes to defeat Arizona State 98-87 Saturday.
The victory snapped a six-game losing streak in which Oregon
(11-14 overall, 5-8 Pacific-10 Conference) lost by an average of 6.5 points per game and dropped from the top of the conference standings to seventh, one game ahead of Arizona State (9-13, 3-10).
Oregon coach Ernie Kent, who has faced a variety of critics in recent weeks, was proud of his team for “hanging in there and refusing to get down on themselves … and just fighting through some things.”
“I’m just so happy for them because they did it,” Kent said of his players in a broadcast interview. “They are the ones who hung in there and figured some things out. They shot it extremely well today, they defended like mad men in the first half, played a great offensive game the second half. It’s just nice to see them get into a rhythm down here.”
Despite the win, the Ducks finished without a field goal in the final five minutes. However, over that stretch Aaron Brooks made seven of eight free-throw attempts and Malik Hairston and Maarty
Leunen were perfect in their six and four attempts from the charity stripe, respectively.
Chamberlain Oguchi tied a career-high with six three-pointers. He hit a trio of three-pointers in the first 4:06 to open the scoring for Oregon, the latest giving the Ducks a 9-8 lead. Arizona State scored on the ensuing possession, but it was the final time the Sun Devils held the lead as Hairston nailed a three on the Ducks’ ensuing possession. Hairston made all three of his three-point attempts in the game.
The Ducks, who were paced by Hairston’s 22 points, had two scorers finish with at least 20 points as well as two others that were within one field goal of reaching 20.
Oguchi made his career-best six threes in eight attempts and finished with 20 points.
“The name of the game is put the ball into the hole,” Kent said. “Champ certainly got us going with his ability to shoot the basketball early.”Oguchi keyed the shooting
attack, but he didn’t do it alone. Oregon finished making 11 of 21 three-pointers and 29 of 49 on field-goal attempts. The Ducks were 29 of 33 from the free-throw line.
Oregon, which led 42-29 at halftime, opened the second half on a 9-2 run to build a 20-point lead with 18:14 remaining.
Arizona State called a timeout on its next possession, then scored seven points within a minute and used a 9-0 run to switch the tide of momentum. Oguchi answered with a three-pointer that quieted the crowd.
Brooks finished with 18 points, followed by Leunen and Ivan Johnson with 17 and 10 points, respectively.
Arizona State was led by six-foot-10 freshman Jeff Pendergraph, who finished with 21 points. Pendergraph keyed the run early in the second half, scoring 10 points before picking up his fourth foul with 13:34 remaining. He returned three minutes later, but was held to six points the rest of the game.
“That’s the most improved freshman maybe in the league,” Kent said. “He is going to be a force. He’s got a great touch for a big guy. We probably gave him too much stuff over the top in the first half in terms of trying to front him. When we went behind we shut him down a little bit. Then he started scoring when we were behind him, then we had to go back to fronting him the last six or seven minutes of the second half to shut him down again. He is a very, very gifted big man.”
The Ducks’ 98 points were the most scored in a regular-season game since a 108-67 win over UC Riverside Dec. 28, 2002.
Oregon hosts No. 23 Washington (18-5, 7-5) at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The game, along with Washington State Saturday at 1 p.m., are the final regular season home games.
“They are big ball games for us,” Kent said. “We’ve got some people we are going to try to catch as we head toward the Pac-10 Tournament.”

[email protected]