Playing without big man N’Faly Dante due to a minor injury suffered in warmups, the Ducks got a career night from sophomore Nate Bittle to avenge a one-sided defeat in Boulder earlier this season. Oregon improved to 12-9 overall and hit the midway point of Pac-12 play at 6-4, two games behind first-place UCLA.
“We’ve just got to play the games as they come, try to finish as high as we can, do the best we can,” UO coach Dana Altman said. “We’re halfway through, 6-4; we’re going to have to do better in the second half. But we (play) everybody who’s ahead of us. So we have a chance. We’ve just got to get better — we’ve got to play better, we’ve got to play tougher.”
Bittle tied his career high with 11 points, set a new career high of 13 rebounds and tied another career high with four blocked shots. Quincy Guerrier also stepped up with 16 points and six rebounds, and Keeshawn Barthelemy added 13 points against the team from which he transferred to Oregon.
“Our team just played crazy tonight,” Bittle said. “We knew what we had to do tonight, and we came out and did what we had to do. We’ve just got to keep building.”
How It Happened: The Ducks relied on the three out of the gate, perhaps not surprising given Dante’s absence. But once they committed to attacking the basket, Jermaine Couisnard, Guerrier and Ke’lel Ware all got to the rim within a span of four possessions to cut an early deficit to 10-9.
The Buffs led 17-13 when Oregon tilted momentum. Barthelemy hit a three out of a timeout, Bittle rebounded a Colorado miss and then made a go-ahead three at the other end, and then Bittle drew a charge back on the defensive end. The Buffs briefly regained the lead at 22-21, but Oregon scored second-chance points on two straight possessions to go back up 25-22, and the Ducks didn’t trail again in the game.
“We were down on the boards there for a little bit, and then we went up on the boards and I think that’s when we made our little push,” Bittle said. “It was really just a big team win.”
Oregon led 32-26 at halftime, and a surge to open the second half got the lead to 44-33 on a three-point play by Will Richardson. The Ducks got the lead back to 11 a few minutes later, when Barthelemy hit a three for a 57-46 advantage…
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