Malik Hairston and Aaron Brooks made sure that the Oregon Ducks didn’t lose for the seventh consecutive time to the No. 24 Arizona Wildcats on Saturday.
The two guards combined to score 28 points in the second half and helped the Ducks (3-2 Pacific-10 Conference, 9-8 overall) hold on to a 73-68 win, their first victory against a ranked opponent in their last 13 tries.
“It’s a big win. It’s a great feeling,” said Hairston, who finished with 23 points in the game, including 18 in the second half. “It’s the first time since I’ve been here that we’ve beaten a ranked team, the first time we’ve won on national television and the first time we beat Arizona. Those are great accomplishments for this basketball team, especially for confidence-building.”
The game marked the return of forward Ivan Johnson, who received his first action since serving a two-game suspension. The junior-college transfer was sent back to Eugene prior to Oregon’s game at Stanford last Saturday for “not living up to personal expectations previously established between he and coach Ernie Kent.”
Johnson and Kent spoke Saturday morning regarding the suspension. A decision was made for Johnson to play just prior to tip-off.
He finished with a team-high seven rebounds and scored 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting.
“Ivan’s going to come to fight for you, regardless. Whether he’s scoring, whether he’s rebounding or whether it’s just his energy, Ivan’s going to fight,” Hairston said. “He’s coming along as well as the rest of this basketball team is.”
Johnson joined four other Ducks in double digits, including Brandon Lincoln (10), Bryce Taylor (11), Brooks (17) and Hairston.
Five Wildcats also scored in double figures, led by junior guard Mustafa Shakur’s 19 points. Hassan Adams, the Pac-10’s leading scorer at just more than 20 points per game, added 15, while Ivan Radenovic and Portland-native Chris Rodgers chipped in 12 apiece. Marcus Williams scored 10.
Oregon shot 55 percent from the floor, including 71 percent in the second half. Arizona shot nearly 43 percent.
“Two words that cost us the game: second shots,” Arizona coach Lute Olson said. “The difference in the 55 percent for them and the 43 percent for us was the number of easy shots they got as a result of those second opportunities and Brooks’ ability to penetrate and get the bucket or find the open man.”
Oregon led 33-29 at the break, thanks in large-part to 10 points off the bench from Lincoln. The senior guard, filling the role of the four spot at times for the injured Maarty Leunen, helped the Ducks quickly erase a 10-2 early deficit by scoring eight straight points to tie the game.
Oregon ended the half on a 14-5 run despite the efforts of Shakur and Rodgers, who scored all but eight of Arizona’s first half points.
Adams, who was mostly defended by the athletic Jordan Kent and Lincoln, had just four points in the first half.
“We just tried to keep someone in front of him,” Lincoln said. “He’s an amazing athlete; he made some tough shots tonight. We just tried to keep a body on him when he was going to the offensive glass. That’s all you can do against a great player like that.”
Hairston’s baseline jump-shot opened the second half, and Brooks followed with a three-pointer to give the Ducks a 38-31 advantage.
The Wildcats went on a 13-6 run to tie the game at 44 before a three-pointer by Hairston, his first of four in the second half, again gave Oregon the lead.
Hairston’s last three-pointer – a well-guarded step-back jumper that barely beat the 35-second shot clock – and subsequent lay-in, gave Oregon a 60-49 lead, its largest of the game with 8:44 to play.
“Malik Hairston had a stretch where he was not going to miss,” Olson said. “You could feel that, and he hit some big-time shots for them.”
Arizona again responded with a 13-2 run that tied the game with 4:03 to play. Brooks then scored on a driving lay-in. Adams answered with a jumper, before Brooks found Johnson for a lay-in.
Brooks was fouled by Rodgers on Oregon’s ensuing possession and made one-of-two free throws. After his second free throw missed, his first miss of the game from the
free-throw line, Kent grabbed the rebound and Brooks eventually scored his tenth point of the second half on another driving lay-in to give the Ducks a 69-65 lead.
“Late in the game, it was just getting the ball in the hands of the guys that can make plays,” coach Kent said. “And they made them.”
Arizona’s Radenovic quickly followed with a three-point play, cutting the deficit to one.
After a Hairston jumper pushed the lead back to three with less than a minute to play, Adams committed a costly turnover by dribbling the ball off of his foot and out-of-bounds. Oregon melted the shot clock before Taylor’s three-point attempt from the corner was blocked by Adams, but grabbed out of the air by Johnson, who passed to a cutting Taylor for the basket, which pushed Oregon’s lead to 73-68.
“That was a great rebound, a great find,” Brooks said of Johnson. “His basketball IQ is great for a big guy inside. That was the icebreaker right there.”
Part of the sellout crowd of 9,087 rushed the floor following the game. Saturday’s win is indicative of Oregon’s roller coaster season. Less than a month prior to Saturday, the Ducks were in a slump, losing three of four games, including losses to Portland and Portland State.
Now the Ducks are one of five teams atop the Pac-10 with two losses. Arizona lost for the third time in four games and was swept on its annual trip to the Oregon schools for the first time since 2000.
Oregon travels to Washington State next Thursday and No. 10 Washington on Saturday.
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