Oregon men overcome disappointment with a rout of No. 9 Arizona
Dana Altman needed a long drive down the freeway early Friday morning to work through his disappointment in how Oregon played in a loss to Arizona State the night before.
Unable to sleep, Altman got in his car and made it all the way to Roseburg before turning around.
"Just to clear my head," he said.
The Oregon men's basketball coach will no doubt be well-rested on Sunday.
Energetic on defense, accurate on offense and all around relentless from the opening tip, the Ducks rolled to an 87-68 Pac-12 victory against No. 9 Arizona at Matthew Knight Arena Saturday afternoon.
Oregon's eighth win against the Wildcats in their last nine game was witnessed in person by an announced crowd of 7,970, including a student section that stormed the court once the final buzzer sounded.
The victory came less than 48 hours after the Ducks (10-8, 4-3 Pac-12) gave a lethargic effort against the Sun Devils, leaving Altman questioning the players' desire to compete.
"Just a different ball club," Altman praised. "We were bad the other night and we were good tonight. And I don't want to take anything away from Arizona State because they just kicked our ass, but we were different tonight."
Jermaine Couisnard, who made his first start of the season, led with 27 points and six 3-pointers — including one that was intended to be a half-court pass that instead swished trough the net — as he continues to show what the Ducks were missing when he couldn't play in the first 14 games as he recovered from knee surgery.
N'Faly Dante also had 22 points and 10 rebounds, shot 9-for-11 from the field and brought down the house one minute into the game when he picked off a pass at midcourt, took three dribbles and two steps before the big man slammed home a one-handed dunk over Arizona guard Kerr Kriisa for the and-1 opportunity.
"That was the most electricity we've had in the building (this season)," Altman said.
"That was crazy," Couisnard said. "I won't lie, I think that just got us going. We was pressing early … we see (Dante) come down and do that, that gave us a lot of confidence."
Oregon broke a 33-33 tie by outscoring Arizona (15-3, 4-3) 10-3 in the final 4:05 of the first half to lead 43-37 at the break.
Two quick 3-pointers by the Wildcats tied the score at 43-43 on the opening minute of the second half.
It was all Oregon after that as it went on an 18-5 run over the next seven minutes to take a 61-48 lead and Arizona trailed by double digits the rest of the game.
Will Richardson also had 14 points and five assists, and Nate Bittle had 10 points for Oregon.
The Wildcats started the game ranked third in the nation in scoring (85.8) and rebounding (42.06) per game and leading the Pac-12 in field-goal shooting percentage at 50%.
But it was the Ducks who dominated the statistics.
They outshot Arizona 53%-38% from the field, had more rebounds (42-32), more second-chance points (14-5), more fast-break points (15-11), more points in the paint (40-30), and though each team had 16 turnovers, the Ducks had more points off turnovers (19-11).
The Wildcats' 32 rebounds were a season low and the Ducks' 13 steals tied their season high.
"Well I hope pride," Altman said about the difference in effort between Thursday's loss and Saturday's win. "I'm disappointed in our maturity and the fact we can't do that every game … but I talked to them about, 'Who are we? What do we want to be?' The guys responded. It was a great effort. They showed their competitiveness and played with tremendous energy."
Oregon at California
7 p.m., Wednesday at Haas Pavilion, Berkeley, Calif. TV: Pac-12 Networks. Radio: KUJZ-FM (95.3)