Oregon’s excitement about going back on the road lasted a grand total of five minutes Thursday night against the California Golden Bears before the issues that plagued them at home resurfaced. Poor shooting by the Ducks and hot shooting by the opposition let the Bears run away in the first half as they cruised to a 89-57 win.
Led by Patrick Christopher’s 21 points, Cal (12-6 overall, 4-2 Pacific-10 Conference) ran out to a 27-point lead at halftime and held Oregon (10-8, 2-4) to just 26.7 percent shooting in the opening half. The Ducks finished with 38 percent for the game, but the first half was where the damage was done.
“We gave them life,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said to the Oregon Sports Network after the game. “We had stops and scoring opportunities, but we couldn’t score and they got rolling.”
It was evident from the start Oregon hadn’t found its shooting touch. In the first six minutes of the game, the Ducks had scored just six points, and at the 10-minute mark they had 11 points. Meanwhile, the Golden Bears used a 9-0 run and an 11-0 run to run up the score on the listless Ducks, who have lost their last four games.
Freshman Jeremy Jacob led the Ducks in scoring with 13 points, while senior Tajuan Porter, playing in his last game in Haas Pavilion, shot 3-of-9 and 0-of-5 from three-pointers for six points. Kent had changed up the starting lineup to a more familiar one, but it didn’t do any good. Junior LeKendric Longmire, sophomore Michael Dunigan, sophomore Malcolm Armstead, freshman E.J. Singler and Porter started, but the Golden Bear defense stifled the entire team.
“That might have been the worst shooting offense I’ve seen of an Oregon offense,” Kent said.
The big lead for the Bears was sparked by the play of Christopher, who had all of his 21 points in the first half. Christopher had two threes and a monster dunk on an assist from Pac-10 leading scorer Jerome Randle. On Christopher’s last bucket of the half — a three-pointer with 1:42 to go — the Cal crowd gave him a standing ovation for the onslaught.
For the Ducks, Longmire struggled from the field after scoring in double-digits in the last two ball games. He was 0-for-7 in the first half and 0-2 in the second with his two points coming from the free-throw line. 
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen them shoot so poorly as a team,” Kent said of his team, saying the defense was there, but the missed shots created opportunities for the Bears.
“We need to get back on our offense game.”
The second half only continued the woes of the first for the Ducks. Cal extended its lead to 35 points with just under six minutes to go in the game, as Oregon still couldn’t get above the 30 percent mark shooting for the game. 
The Golden Bears finished with four players in double figures, with Theo Robertson adding 18 points on 3-of-4 shooting from beyond the arc, and Randle with 11 points. Armstead and Dunigan both had nine points for Oregon, and Dunigan added 10 rebounds.
“(Christopher) got rolling on us in the first half, and he got rolling because we didn’t take advantage of open shots,” Kent said.
Next up for the Ducks is Stanford on Saturday night at 5 p.m. in Palo Alto, Calif. The Cardinal beat Oregon State Thursday night 59-35. It was Stanford’s first win after losing two straight to Washington and Washington State last week.
Meanwhile, the Ducks look to turnaround what has turned into a sour start to the Pac-10 season after starting 2-0 in conference. For Kent, that means forgetting this game as soon as possible and just moving on.
“It was a frustrating evening for all of us and we’re going to throw the ball out the window and prepare for Stanford,” Ken said.
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