Oregon's Tajuan Porter broke out of his season long shooting slump for 23 points to guide the Ducks past Oregon State 79-63 in the 328th edition of the Civil War.
Bryce Taylor added 17 points as the Ducks snapped a four-game losing skid and closed the books on the first half of Pac-10 play.
The Beavers remained winless in conference play but made a game of it for the first 32 minutes before the Ducks pulled away in a 19-4 flurry ignited by Porter's rediscovered shooting rhythm. Porter scored 10 of the points after the Beavers had closed to within a point at 57-56.
Not so much resembling the team that was at the bottom of the conference field goal shooting statistics, the Beavers shot an even 50% in the opening half on 15-30 from the floor and remained within four points of the Ducks until LeKendric Longmire's lay-up was followed by a deuce and trey from Porter gave the Duck's a nine point margin.
Oregon State's Omari Johnson hit for three of his own to narrow the halftime deficit to six points for the visitors.
A couple more trey's by Porter in the opening minutes of the second stanza allowed the Ducks to build a 10-point lead two minutes in, but the Beavers clawed their way back into the contest on the shoulders of Calvin Haynes career high 17 points and Calvin Hampton's 5-5 shooting off the bench.
After seeing the lead cut to one point with just over eight minutes to play, Maarty Leunen's tip-in of Malik Hairston's miss started Oregon on their decisive run. Fouled on the play, Leunen's free throw moved the margin to four points.
Porter hit another trey following a steal by Hairston and the Ducks had the Beavers on the run. As the volume in the building grew, Oregon elevated its defensive pressure and pulled away from the Beavers, first with a trey by Porter followed by another from Churchill Odia..
Calvin Haynes followed each with two point buckets at the other end of the floor but the Beavers would score only three more points the rest of the way.
Hairston assisted on Taylor's triple then blocked Seth Tarver's shot attempt, getting the Ducks into transition. Porter hit another three-ball, then threw the last couple of shovels of dirt on the Beavers with a pair of lay-ups after Oregon defensive stops.
"I don't think their record does them justice," said Hairston. They're athletic, big and talented. We were able to finally get some stops in the last eight minutes. That's important when Tajuan (Porter) and Bryce (Taylor) are hitting shots like that."
"Defensively in the first half we didn't make smart plays," offered head coach Ernie Kent. "I thought we stepped up in the last six minutes and really showed some effort."
"If we can continue to improve defensively the second half of the season should be good for us. The second time around the team knows what you want to do, and they can take parts of your game away with the scouting, but we are a tough team to stop offensively with our ability to score from all over the floor."
Oregon opens the second half of conference play on the road, facing the Bay Area pair before the Huskies (Feb 14th, 5:30 pm) and the Cougars (Feb 16th, 6:00 pm) visit McArthur Court. FoxSports Northwest will televise Thursday's contest and OSN will handle Saturday's tilt.
