If Oregon misses the NCAA tournament, the Ducks will probably look to this one game as the reason why.
In somewhat of a must-win game, the Ducks were unable to hit shots down the stretch inside Pauley Pavilion and UCLA was able to come away with a critical 71-63 victory.
With the loss, Oregon dropped to 15-7 overall and out of first place in the Pac-12 with a 7-4 record, 1/2 game behind Arizona.
This was one of the strangest games you’ll see this college basketball season as the Ducks found themselves down by 18 in the first half only to rally and take a 34-33 halftime lead.
Both the Ducks and Bruins traded baskets for most of the second half, but UCLA managed to go on a 13-3 run to end the game after it was 58-58 with just 5:23 left.
N’Faly led the Ducks with 16 points and eight rebounds while Jadrian Tracey added 15 points, 13 of those coming before halftime. His trio of treys brought the Ducks back into the game in the first half as the Bruins threatened to run Oregon out of the building.
Dylan Andrews led all scorers with 21 points. Most of his nine made shots came from the elbow off of a screen. UCLA ran that same play on Oregon’s defense more than a few times and killed the Ducks with that 15-foot jumper all night.
Sabastian Mack added 16 for the Bruins and Laz Stefanovic scored 15.
It was a missed opportunity for the Ducks to get a road win onto their resume and to get a nice road sweep in Los Angeles. Perhaps everyone should have known this wasn’t destined to occur even before the game as the Ducks were stuck on the team bus for over an hour due to the presidential motorcade.
Oregon arrived at the arena just a half hour before game time. UCLA was able to delay the official start time by 25 minutes to give the Ducks the proper time to warm up.
Unfortunately, it took a bit for the Ducks to get their legs under them. UCLA raced out to a 23-5 lead in the first 7:30 of the contest.
Now the Ducks will travel back to Eugene where the Washington schools await. The Huskies are first up on Thursday before taking on the Cougars on Saturday.
