McArthur Court turned 75 years old Tuesday night.
At times, the Ducks looked like the “Tall Firs” from 75 years ago — and it wasn’t just their pulled-up socks.
The Oregon men’s basketball team went back in time by playing the Division III Willamette Bearcats in a rematch of the first game played at Mac Court, 75 years ago, when the Tall Firs won 38-10. The Ducks won Tuesday’s contest by 23 points, 71-48, but were often outplayed by the underdog Bearcats.
“They brought energy and hustle, and that’s what they were supposed to do,” said Oregon guard Freddie Jones, who led all scorers with 19 points Tuesday night.
There were enough festivities and special events to take the spotlight off the poor game play, but the game continued nonetheless.
The two teams combined for only 10 total points in the game’s first six-and-a-half minutes. Willamette went on various scoring droughts that lasted 2:14, 2:38, 3:03 and 10:40. The Bearcats shot only 17.2 percent from the floor in the first half, and the Ducks were also below average, shooting 35.5 percent.
“It was a tough game for us to get up for after Stanford and Cal,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said, referring to the Ducks’ last two wins against Pacific-10 Conference foes.
For three glorious minutes Tuesday night, Willamette actually led the Pac-10 powerhouse. The Bearcats’ B.J. Dobrkovsky and Brian Newton made back-to-back threes at the 16:53 mark to put Willamette ahead, 6-4.
“Hey, all we wanted was to score the first basket, call a timeout, go to half court and take a picture,” Willamette head coach Gordie James said with a smile after the game.
The Bearcats forced Oregon’s Mark Michaelis to miss a lay-up, then Luke Jackson committed an offensive foul, Jones missed a three, Robert Johnson missed a lay-up and Willamette started a three-on-one break with visions of upsets dancing in their heads.

But Ryan Hepp threw the ball out of bounds, Oregon scored on the next possession and the Bearcats were history, so to speak.
Willamette’s poor shooting — James said his team “shot like a Division III squad” — eventually did the team in. The Bearcats’ longest dry spell came midway through the first half, after their big run. Willamette went more than 10 minutes without a bucket, a drought that was finally ended with a Dobrkovsky lay-in at the 4:42 mark of the first frame. While the Bearcats were stuck on six, the Ducks scored 19 unanswered points to firmly take hold of the game.
But the Oregon players weren’t dazzling, either. Whereas five Ducks scored in double figures against then-14th-ranked Stanford on Saturday, only three reached that mark against Willamette on Tuesday night. Besides Jones’ 19, Ridnour added 14 points and James Davis netted 10.
The most spectacular play of the game came, as usual, from Jones, who passed Terrell Brandon on the all-time Oregon scoring list with his performance Tuesday night.
With seven minutes elapsed in the second half, Davis led a fast break, dished a pass behind his back to Jones, who thumped the ball home for his only dunk of the game.
Several players saw more court time than normal Tuesday night. Reserve guard Anthony Lever saw the most minutes, 28, and reserves Michaelis, Jay Anderson, Ben Lindquist and Kristian Christiensen also notched several minutes each.
All the players and coaches involved agreed that the game’s importance rested not in the play on the court, but in the significance of Mac Court’s birthday.
“We said before the game, ‘This is a celebration. This is special,’” James said. “To represent Willamette in this game was truly special.”
“This game was about all of these people who have gone through this program and made it what it is,” Kent said. “It was about much more than this Oregon basketball team.”
And, like those pulled-up socks donned by several of the Oregon players, the Ducks can only forget and move on.
“That was a one-game trail basis,” Jones said about the socks. “And
it failed.”