Ducks Dig Deep To Beat Arizona

Thursday, January 17

Tucson, AZ

6:00 PM

University of Oregon

11-6, 2-2

Arizona

13-5, 4-1

Oregon

Arizona

Photo by: Casey Sapio-USA TODAY Sports

01/17/19 | Men's Basketball

Box Score MBB Box Score - Oregon 59, Arizona 54

Oregon had to make tough plays down the stretch Thursday night to grind out a 59-54 victory at Arizona.

By: Rob Moseley

TUCSON, Ariz. — They took charges. They won battles for offensive rebounds to extend possessions. They overcame turnovers with big plays at the other end of the floor.

And ultimately, they won, the Oregon men's basketball team grinding out a 59-54 win Thursday over Arizona in the McKale Center. A week after their demoralizing loss to UCLA, the Ducks have answered with a blowout win over USC and then Thursday's gritty, resilient effort.

There weren't many big shots to point to, perhaps other than a three-pointer by Victor Bailey Jr. with 1:43 to go that put the Ducks up seven. More important were plays like the next possession, in which Oregon went scoreless but Payton Pritchard rebounded his own miss to reset the shot clock and milk nearly a minute off the game clock in the final 90 seconds.

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"I told you, you gotta grind 'em out on the road," UO coach Dana Altman told his team in the locker room afterwards. "Find a way. It doesn't have to be a thing of beauty; it's got to be a thing of toughness."

Altman's message echoed that of another UO head coach, Mario Cristobal, after the football team's 7-6 victory in the Redbox Bowl. That slog against Michigan State wasn't a beauty pageant, and neither was Thursday's game at Arizona, the first between the two teams in which neither was ranked since 2012.

But both were victories for Oregon. In the end, nothing else mattered.

There isn't any questioning the Ducks' resiliency at this point, after they rebounded from the crushing defeat to UCLA by blowing out the Trojans. But the UO men demonstrated it again Thursday, time and time again.

In the first half, the Ducks trailed 16-11 early on, having started the game 5-of-20 from the field — including 0-of-6 from three-point range. It was 16-13 when UO senior Ehab Amin missed a layin that would have made it a one-point game. Rather than hang his head, Amin alertly made a steal in the backcourt and fed Bailey, who sunk a three-pointer to break Oregon's cold spell.

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"Their crowd is tremendous," said Bailey, who finished with 13 points. "They're always going to have them in the game, no matter who they're playing. And that can be a factor. We just had to keep our heads in it, keep looking forward and keep our foot on the gas pedal."

White led the Ducks with 16 points, including a three-pointer to cap a 15-2 run that made it 26-16, helping Oregon to a 31-23 lead at halftime. Another three by White early in the second half gave Oregon its biggest lead, 39-26.

But just as big was a play White made on the defensive end moments later, like Amin accounting for his own mistake with heads-up defense.

For the first time all game, Arizona made field goals on back-to-back possessions a little over eight minutes into the second half. The Wildcats closed within 39-30, and the McKale Center was coming alive.

White had a turnover at Oregon's end, and Arizona threatened to go on a big run. Back on defense, though, White took a charge — a skill highly valued by Altman, which the UO senior has shown a knack for the last two weeks.

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At the other end, Kenny Wooten sunk a hook shot — in his first game back from a broken jaw — and Oregon had stemmed the tide. Arizona wasn't dead by any means, but the Ducks were proving they were willing to do the little things to win.

"It was things like that that enabled us to keep momentum on our side," White said of taking the charge, something freshman Francis Okoro also did down the stretch when the Wildcats closed within 49-43.

That came with 5:25 left in the game, the score on Oregon's side but ample time left for a comeback. On the next trip, Louis King missed but fought gallantly for the offensive rebound. A kicked ball by Arizona further extended the shot clock, and by the time White tipped in a miss for a 51-43 lead, the possession had drained more than a minute of game time.

Pritchard's rebound of his own miss in the final 90 seconds had a similar result. And when the Ducks bounced back from a 1-of-4 start at the free-throw line by making 7-of-8 down the stretch, they had not only beaten Arizona but proven yet again they aren't the team that started out 0-2 in Pac-12 play.

"We learned from 'em," White said of those losses. "And I think our team has done a great job of responding."