Luke Ridnour admitted he was a bit sluggish in thefirst half Saturday against Arizona State.
He wasn’t alone.
The No. 9 Ducks, coming off a heartbreaking loss toNo. 4 Arizona on Thursday, shot just 10-of-26 (.385)in the first half as the Sun Devils led 39-33 at thebreak.
But the second half was a completely different story,and Ridnour was at the heart of Oregon’s turnaround.The junior point guard hit 6-of-7 shots in the secondhalf and Oregon (10-2 overall, 1-1 Pacific-10Conference) connected on 21-of-26 (.808) attempts in a94-73 win in front of a soldout crowd of 9,087 atMcArthur Court.
“Rid just took over the game,” Oregon forward JayAnderson said. “Nobody could stop him.”
Ridnour fed Robert Johnson under the basket with abehind-the-back pass at the 16:02 mark, bringing thecrowd back into the game and the Ducks within one at44-45. Ridnour drained a three-pointer at the topof the key, then drove the lane for two on the nextpossession.
That prompted a 21-0 Oregon run to break the gameopen.
Ridnour finished with a team-high 24 points and sevenassists, while Luke Jackson added 18 points and 10rebounds. Anderson finished with a career-high 10points.
“Ridnour needed to (take over),” Oregon head coachErnie Kent said. “He struggled so much in the Arizonagame (with eight turnovers). That’s the time when weneeded him to step up.”
Freshman center Ike Diogu had a game-high 27 pointsfor ASU (9-4, 1-1).
“Give them credit,” Anderson said of the Sun Devils.
“They played with us for 30 minutes.”
Andre Joseph, Matt Short and Brandon Lincoln combinedfor 18 points off the bench for Oregon as center IanCrosswhite was benched for the second half afterstruggling in the first.
“Our bench was the biggest surprise and the biggestplus,” Kent said.
Oregon outscored the Sun Devils 61-34 in the secondhalf and had a 17-9 advantage on the boards.
“We could have folded easily,” Ridnour said. “We showedthe guts of this team. This was an awesome team winfor us.”
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