Playing with a relaxed surety that seemed somewhat reminiscient of last year's Ducks, Oregon waltzed by the Huskies 71-58 Thursday evening at McArthur Court.
With the win Oregon moved their conference record to 6-6 as they head into the last month of the conference season. It was the Washington schools that last year served as a springboard to a spectacular run to the elite eight.
In Thursday's win, the most telling statistic had to be the shots/attempts; 14-25 from three and 21-49 over all ... that's twice as many treys on nearly the exact same number of attempts. Leverage that with the 16 assists the Ducks handed out on their 21 buckets and you have a pretty complete perspective of Oregon's key to success.
Five Ducks hit for double figures, including Churchill Odia who was 4-5 from behind the arc to give Oregon a nice new wrinkle to their offensive attack. Bryce Taylor's 15 paced the Ducks, Malik Hairston added 13 while Maarty Leunen and Joevan Catron each pitched in 10.
It was Odia's trey that broke a 10-10 tie and Oregon had a lead they would not surrender seven and a half minutes into the opening half.
Leading by six at the break, Oregon opened with a 12-2 run in the first five minutes of the second half to take control of the game.
Washington's Jon Brockman hit for a bucket in the paint and the Pit Crew's Valentine nemesis Ryan Appleby connected from distance to narrow Oregon's lead to 11 six minutes in, but that is as close as the Huskies could get.
Hairston found a seam in Washington's defense and hammered home a dunk, then Leunen drained a three behind a screen on the wing and Oregon had their foot back on the throttle.
Oregon scrambled the Husky defense with crisp passing and good floor spacing, leaving the Huskies a step behind most of Oregon's jump shots and that helped put Oregon at the free throw line 26 times. Although they would hit only 15 of their attempts (57.7%) it was enough to eliminate any suspense down the stretch.
The lead grew to 20 points and only a two minute drought when Oregon emptied their bench allowed the Huskies to shave the deficit to a more respectable final margin.
"I thought we were outstanding defensively," said Oregon coach Ernie Kent. "Offensively, we know where we are, but defensively I think we're really coming around."
On the heels of Washington's upset of UCLA last weekend, Oregon perhaps should have expected more of a battle. But as they did in Berkeley last Saturday, the Ducks demonstrated patience with their offense from start to finish and worked the defensive end hard. Just as they had in removing Ryan Anderson as a threat when they played the Bears, Oregon was able to focus on eliminating Ryan Appleby as a scoring threat (8 points on 3-10) thanks to Bryce Taylor's defense.
The Ducks held the Huskies to 24-61 (39.3%) from the floor.
When the Huskies looked to Brockman for the offense, Joevan Catron was well positioned to lean on the Washington big man and force the shot a step further away from the bucket. Maarty Leunen cleaned up nine boards coming of the weakside, fueling Oregon's transition - much the same formula that worked for Oregon last season.
"Defense leads us in everything," said Leunen. "Sometimes we're mismatched defensively but if we play tough and keep them to a low field goal percentage we know we have a good shot because then we can beat them on the other end of the court."
With the Huskies dispatched, the Ducks can now focus on Saturday's match-up with Washington State and their opportunity to move above .500 in conference play. "Saturday is a big, big ballgame because it gives us a chance to go out on the road in control of our own destiny," said Kent. Game time is 6:00 pm.
