By Aiden Hess
EUGENE, Ore. – The Oregon Ducks Men’s Basketball team began Pac-12 Conference play off on the right foot with a win against the Washington State Cougars 74-60 Thursday night at Matthew Knight Arena. The game got off to a sluggish start on offense for both sides as the score stood at 9-6 in favor of the Cougars heading into the first TV Timeout. This close margin would remain a recurring theme throughout the entire first half with each team’s biggest lead being four points for the Ducks and three for the Cougars. The first half came to a close deadlocked at 32 points a piece highlighted by two crowd-energizing alley-oop dunks by freshman forward Kel’el Ware of Oregon and a 17 point first half performance by Washington State center Mouhamed Gueye.

However, the second half proved to be a different story as the Ducks outscored the Cougars 42-28 in the second frame en route to the 14 point victory. Center N’Faly Dante led the Ducks on offense as he recorded 22 points and 7 rebounds while shooting at a highly efficient 11 for 16 clip. Point Guard Will Richardson was also a major contributor in the contest adding 17 points and 8 assists of his own. Carrying over his high quality play from the recent Phil Knight Invitational Tournament in Portland back to Eugene, Richardson received praise from Head Coach Dana Altman especially regarding his playmaking ability allowing for teammates to get involved scoring wise.
The defense also played a massive role in delivering the first conference win of the season. The Ducks recorded 9 steals and used an effective full court trap early on in the second half that helped lead to 17 total Cougar turnovers, but the biggest takeaway was Oregon’s ability to take the three ball out of the offense of Washington State. The Cougars shot a meager 3 for 14 from beyond the arc following performances where they made 19 3’s against Detroit Mercy and 15 against Eastern Washington in their previous two match-ups. The Cougars entered tonight’s game shooting an astounding 44.4 percent from deep in which. Coach Altman was overall pleased with his team’s performance both offensively and defensively alluding to a multitude of different
players on the Oregon side that factored into beginning conference play with a win.

The Ducks will resume action with their first game of the season outside of the state of Oregon as they travel to Westwood to take on the #21 ranked UCLA Bruins on Sunday December 4th at 2PM.

Audio story and co-coverage by Owen Johnson