Oregon Splits Home Stand with Win over Washington State, 78-58

Washington State has now lost 8 straight at Oregon. Oregon has beaten the Cougars 14 times out of the last 16 contests. The Cougars were shooting at a very high-rate in the 1st half but fell off just a bit in the 2nd half. The Ducks took advantage of that and pulled out the blowout victory. Both teams were efficient from the field as Oregon shot 54.5 % and Washington State was shooting at a 54.3 % mark, a combined 55 for 101 field goal attempts.

Oregon Ducks:

(Starters)

Louis King - 22 Points, 5 Rebounds

Paul White - 18 Points, 6 Rebounds

Francis Okoro - 1 Point

Will Richardson - 2 Points, 5 Rebounds

Payton Pritchard - 5 Points, 8 Assists, 6 Steals (Career-High)

(Reserves)

Kenny Wooten - 20 Points, 4 Rebounds, 3 Blocks

Ehab Amin - 2 Points, 5 Rebounds

Miles Norris - 2 Points

Victor Bailey Jr. - 6 Points

Washington State Cougars

(Starters)

Robert Franks - 19 Points, 5 Rebounds

Jeff Pollard - 10 Points

CJ Elleby - 15 Points, 8 Rebounds, 7 Assists

Ahmed Ali - 5 Points

Viont’e Daniels - 0 Points

(Reserves)

Jervae Robinson - 2 Points

Tonight’s Observations:

• Paul White (despite his ankle injury nagging him) made a major impact on this game.
• Victor Bailey Jr. had missed his last 15 shots from the field until he hit a three-pointer to make the score 39-35, Washington State over Oregon.
• Oregon was struggling from beyond the arc (4-14 3PT or 28.6 %) in the 1st half.
• Washington State was shooting the lights out to start this game, making 17 of 22 shots from the field (77.3 %) in the 1st half.
• Robert Franks (6-6 FG), Jeff Pollard (4-4 FG), and CJ Elleby (5-7 FG) combined for 35 of the 39 1st half points for the Cougars.

• Payton Pritchard joins Ron Lee, Aaron Brooks, Luke Ridnour, Luke Jackson, and Kenya Wilkins as the only players in program history with 1,000 career points and 400 career assists. Pritchard will most likely join the 500 career assists club by the end of his senior year. As of now, Pritchard is sixth for most assists in Oregon history.
• Oregon was down by 2 points around the 10 minute-mark and that’s when the Ducks turned it up on the offensive end. They never looked back since that point.
• Wooten was the spark off the bench that the Ducks needed. He was protecting the rim with his 3 blocks and tied his career-high with 20 points.
• Oregon took really good care of the basketball, only giving up 7 turnovers. The Ducks were also aggressive in the passing lanes with 10 steals.
• Louis King got his career-high tonight with 22 points.

Oregon splits the home stand series with a loss to Washington and a win over Washington State. The Ducks won’t see those two opponents until the last road trip of the regular season on March 6th (@ Washington) and on March 9th (@ Washington State).

Next Game - Oregon @ Utah (9:00 PM ET, PAC12) on Thursday, January 31st

*Arden Cravalho is a senior at Gonzaga University... Follow him on Twitter @a_cravalho