Written by: Jonah Bruneau
Eugene, OR– In front of a nearly sold out Matthew Knight Arena on the eve of Super Bowl Sunday, the No. 7 UCLA Bruins looked to earn a fourth straight win on the road against a hungry Oregon Ducks bunch. After Oregon’s victory on Thursday night against the USC Trojans, optimism was high around town with the Ducks also looking to upset the Bruins at home in back-to-back seasons. That story however failed to come true as after a competitive first half from Oregon, UCLA took over in commanding fashion in the second half to score a 70-63 win. With Arizona losing earlier in the evening to a struggling Stanford team, the Bruins have now put themselves in the conversation to be the high standard of the PAC-12. As for Oregon, their 11th loss of the season puts them in an extremely tight position as the bubble watch for the NCAA Tournament begins to thin out with each game the rest of the way in the regular season.
The Ducks ran into more of the same problems that have been hurting them all season long: Lack of three-point accuracy when it mattered, and turnovers on offense. However it was not until the second half where these issues arose for the Ducks, more specifically with turnovers. In the first half, Oregon lost seven offensive possessions to turnovers, yet they were able to force six on UCLA and keep key players such as Seniors Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Tyger Campbell in check. Going just 1-4 from downtown in the first half, UCLA’s lack of three-point shooting helped Oregon to a 33-30 lead going into the halftime locker room.
Once the second half got started, it was all Bruins on both ends of the court. The man leading the charge for UCLA was their leading scorer on the season in Jaime Jaquez Jr. Arguably the most talented player in the PAC-12, Jaquez Jr. tallied 18 second-half points with a 50% shooting percentage from the field (7-14). One of those 18 seemed to take all the wind out of the sails of Oregon after Jaquez Jr. poke the ball away from Senior Guard Will Richardson and finished at the other end of the court with a thunderous two-hand jam, giving UCLA what would be their largest lead of the night also at 18. This hiccup summed up the second half for Oregon as they lost nine turnovers compared to UCLA's two, resulting in 19 points off the Duck blunders.
Senior Jermaine Couisnard led the way in scoring for the Ducks with 19, all of which just about coming in the second half as he was held to only a single point in the first 20 minutes of the contest. Senior N'Faly Dante was the story for Oregon in the opening half, racking up 11 points with eight total rebounds and two blocks on defense. At the end of the night, Dante finished with 13, going quiet in the second half and only recording a lone bucket. Oregon's season leading scorer Will Richardson had an uncharacteristic off performance, only putting up five points on the stat sheet to go along with three turnovers.
Oregon will now turn around and take a short trip up north to Washington to take on the 13-13 Huskies on Wednesday, followed by a match-up against a currently 11-15 Washington State team in Pullman on Sunday afternoon.
Audio Story by Griffin Bowes