The Oregon men’s basketball team’s ship is sinking quickly as the Ducks once again couldn’t recover from another early deficit and fell to California 65-62 at the Haas Pavilion in Berkeley, Calif., Thursday night.
The Ducks (11-6 overall, 3-5 Pacific-10 Conference) trailed by as many as 12 points in the second half but cut the Golden Bears (10-8, 3-5) lead to one with less than two minutes in the game. Oregon couldn’t execute down the stretch as Aaron Brooks missed a deep three-pointer and Jordan Kent missed two — including an air ball.
“The problem is that we are putting ourselves in too big of a hole and we had to fight like crazy to come back, and we couldn’t quite do it,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “That was a tough three for Aaron to take, because Ian was open in the lane.”
Two problems plagued Oregon for most of the game — turnovers and an inability to keep California off the boards.
Oregon committed 18 turnovers in the game, which translated to 26 points for the Golden Bears.
California grabbed 14 offensive rebounds and collected 17 second-chance points.
The Bears also shot uncharacteristically well from the free-throw line. California came into the game shooting 60 percent from the line but went 17 of 20 against the Ducks.
Cal guard Marquise Kately, who scored 15 points and had six rebounds, came into Thursday night’s matchup shooting 44 percent from the free-throw line but turned around to give a 7 of 7 performance against Oregon.
“I thought they were going to miss more of them,” Kent said of Cal’s free-throw shooting. “That doesn’t matter. We gave them too much of a cushion, and we couldn’t come back and get it done.”
Oregon was led offensively by freshman Malik Hairston, who had 15 points and went 2 of 3 from behind the arc. Brooks didn’t score his first bucket until the second half but still finished with 11 points and
seven assists.
Forward Ian Crosswhite was once again inserted in the Ducks’ starting lineup and responded with six points and 10 rebounds.
Oregon started the game leading
8-5, but had trouble combating the inside game of Cal’s 6-foot-10 forward Rod Benson. The San Diego native scored 10 of his 15 points and hit his first six free throws in the first half, helping Cal to a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.Hairston hit back-to-back three-pointers early in the second half to cut the lead to six points. After an alley-oop from Cal’s Martin Smith to Dominic McGuire, Oregon’s Brooks hit a three to start a 7-0 run that cut the Bears lead to three.
California countered with another alley-oop to Benson to ignite a 10-0 run for the Bears, giving them enough of a cushion to stave off any more Duck comeback attempts.
“We weren’t executing our game plan tonight,” Kent said. “Now we have to look at what and who is causing this to happen and figure it out.”
The Ducks will play at Maples Pavilion Saturday against a Stanford team that is fresh off a 69-65 victory over Oregon State.