Oregon Ducks Men's Basketball Vs. Oregon State Beavers Recap: Ducks Use Strong Second Half to Flatten Beavers

For the seventh time in conference play, the Ducks found themselves trailing at the half. In those games the Ducks are now 6-1 following their 85-75 defeat of in state rival Oregon State. It was senior day in Eugene, marking the final home game for Carlos Emory, EJ Singler, Tony Woods and Arsalan Kazemi. The four did not disappoint, combining for 25 consecutive points down the stretch to tie and pull away from the Beavers in the second half. Carlos Emory led the Ducks with 21 points, Kazemi and Woods added 17 and 16 respectively as the Ducks pounded the paint late. Roberto Nelson was the game's top scorer, he had 31 points and was aided by Devon Callier's 14 as the Beavers fell to the Ducks. "Nelson was really good," said Dana Altman, "he was really on tonight...we just couldn't stop him." Both teams shot the ball around 50% for the game and 50.9% shooting for the Ducks aided them in scoring the most points they've had in conference play.

The first half was the Roberto Nelson show for Oregon State as he scored 22 points on 9-13 shooting including a 3 pointer in the closing seconds to give Oregon State a 7 point half time lead. Oregon State seemed to impose their will inside on the Ducks, scoring nearly half of their points in the paint and were pushing them around on defense. The last four minutes belonged to the visitors as they went on a 16-5 run to take what was a 4 point Oregon lead and turn it to a 7 point OSU lead. Duck fans held their breath when Damyean Dotson went down hard on a physical play under the hoop. The injury was serious enough to put him on the bench for the remainder of the game and Coach Altman felt that he "didn't think he'd play Saturday [if there was a game.] He's going to be stiff and sore for the next few days."

The second half started much the same way, as Oregon State continued to get the ball inside. Despite the deficit, EJ Singler was confident, "I knew we would come back and I wasn't really that worried. I think our senior leadership in the second half is really, really good." The momentum seemed to turn for the Ducks though when Tony Woods stepped in to take a charge from Eric Moreland. Moreland was charged with a technical foul after the play and it seemed to energize the home team. From that point on, it was all Ducks as they rattled off a 21-7 run of their own over a 6 minute stretch. Oregon would not look back. The Ducks stretched the lead to as much as 13 with just under 2 minutes to put the game on ice. Oregon's defense seemed to wake up on Roberto Nelson as he did not have a field goal in the second half until the 2:07 mark in the period. The other major factor in the Oregon win was Oregon State's foul trouble. Joe Burton found himself on the bench when he was saddled with his fourth foul with over 10 minutes remaining. The Ducks capitalized, using that time to go inside to Tony Woods and Arsalan Kazemi.

One of the more major sidebars of the game was the return of Dominic Artis to the Oregon lineup. In 12 minutes, Artis hit a pair of three pointers, one in each half, and provided solid minutes while Johnathan Loyd faced foul trouble of his own. The Ducks got the season sweep of Oregon State and remain on top of the conference standings. Their final test of the regular season is against Utah and Colorado. The race is coming down to the final weekend and Oregon has to go into Boulder and defeat a team that seems to have a knack for beating the Ducks in dramatic fashion.