Oregon’s 11-game Home Winning Streak Snapped by No. 9 Arizona in 87-78 Loss
The Oregon Ducks (14-6, 6-3 Pac-12) dropped their first home game of the season in front of a sold-out crowd (12,364 fans) to the Arizona Wildcats (15-5, 6-3 Pac-12) losing 87-78 on Saturday in Eugene.
Caleb Love scored a career-high 36 points, lighting up the Ducks from beyond the arc making five three-pointers while shooting 66% from the field.
“Love had a tremendous game,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said. “He’s a tremendous player, but some of the looks we gave him were just way too easy.”
Jermaine Couisnard and N’Faly Dante combined for 39 points, but their efforts weren’t enough to put Oregon ahead at any point in the game.
On top of having their 11-game home winning streak snapped, Oregon may have lost Keeshawn Barthelemy for the season. The point guard went down with a knee injury four minutes into the second half, grimacing while holding his knee on the floor before being taken off of the court.
Keeshawn Barthelemy scored 7 points in 12 minutes of action against Arizona.
Darby Winter/Ducks Digest
“It wasn’t good,” Altman said. “That’s all I can say about it.”
Arizona got out to an early lead and Oregon was never able to recover. Altman had to take a timeout three minutes into the game as the Wildcats were up 14-5.
The Wildcats were physical on defense and on the boards, forcing Oregon to rush through their sets and allowing Oumar Ballo to get offensive rebounds.
Dante only had one rebound the entire first half, while Ballo and Motieju Krivas each had four rebounds at the half.
“Their pressure and physicality probably did speed us up a little bit,” Altman said. “We had some poor shot selection. Obviously, the turnovers especially the first half really hurt us. But no they just got after us and we didn't do a good job of adjusting to the pace of the game.”
On top of their offensive struggles, Oregon also turned the ball over 12 times in the first half, which led to Arizona scoring 10 points off of turnovers.
There were some bright spots amidst getting physically out played.
Kwame Evans Jr. provided an immediate spark off the bench, scoring a three-pointer to stop Arizona’s 11-0 run after Altman’s first timeout, then he dunked an alley-oop from Couisnard off of a Wildcat turnover. He also got two blocks in the first half while playing lockdown defense on the perimeter.
“[Evans] got some deflections defensively and did some good things, especially in that first half,” Altman said. “I thought defensively, he got some deflections and steals that really helped us out.”
Kwame Evans Jr. shoots a three-pointer against the Arizona Wildcats.
Darby Winter/Ducks Digest
Other than the highlight alley-oop, Evans’ best play came when he clamped up Kylan Boswell on the perimeter to force a shot clock violation.
Couisnard hit a full-court buzzer-beater at the end of the first half cutting Arizona’s lead down to seven and giving Oregon the momentum going into halftime.
Coming out of the half the Ducks came out flat, letting the Wildcats extend their lead to 13.
After Barthelemy came out of the game, Arizona grew their lead all the way to 16 points. He had seven points in 16 minutes of action.
“For me personally I’ve been through a lot,” Dante said. “So seeing my teammate go out like that is not something that I want to see.”
When Arizona went up by 16, the Ducks were 0/4 and scoreless for 4:46.
Nothing was going offensively for Oregon until Couisnard started to attack the basket. He scored four points in under a minute, cutting Arizona’s lead back down to 10 with 8:30 left in the game.
Jermaine Couisnard scored a team-high 20 points against Arizona.
Darby Winter/Ducks Digest
Oregon wasn’t able to chip away at Arizona’s lead any more than that for the rest of the game.
The Ducks will now look forward to traveling to Southern California and try to bounce back from their third conference loss.
“It’s obviously a big road trip,” Altman said. “We’re going to have to play well and guys are just going to have to regroup and get ready to go.”
