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The No. 21 Oregon Ducks (8-1, 3-0) extended their home winning streak to 28 games with a 73-56 victory over the Stanford Cardinal (5-3, 1-1) on Saturday night.
Chris Duarte finished with a team-high 23 points on 9-of-17 shooting. The senior guard also tallied six rebounds, four steals, two blocks, and drained three triples in the final 4:26 of the game to help the Ducks close out the contest on a 19-3 run.
Eugene Omoruyi contributed to the late-game rally by hitting the shot that put Oregon up for good: a three-pointer at the 9:21 mark in the second quarter that gave the home team a 48-46 lead. He also added five assists and four rebounds in what ended up being a spirited conference contest.
Stanford raced out to an early 11-3 lead, but a 7-0 Duck run capped off by a steal and layup from LJ Figueroa cut the lead to one. Oregon went cold for much of the opening frame, going into halftime shooting just 36 percent. However, Eric Williams nailed a corner three in the closing seconds of the half to make it a one-score game, 32-30, with the Cardinal on top.
Neither team shot the three well in the first half—Stanford was 1 of 7, Oregon 3 of 14—but the Ducks course-corrected by finishing 13 of 33 from downtown, while the Cardinal went on to hit just 3 of 18.
LJ Figueroa, the senior transfer from St. John’s, finished with a double double on 13 points and 12 rebounds. An impressive rebound and dunk off his own missed three-point attempt from Figueroa tied the game at 41 apiece and inspired a dominate stretch of play from the Ducks. Eric Williams Jr and Amauri Hardy were the other two Ducks to earn the start and finished with 12 and 5 points, respectively.
What really won the game for Oregon was their tenacious defense, which scored 17 points off of Stanford’s 19 turnovers, and held the Cardinal to just 40.4 percent (21 of 52) shooting on the night. Stanford’s Oscar da Silva led his squad with 11 points and six rebounds.
The Ducks were without freshman Jalen Terry, which is partially why they played just seven players against the Cardinal.
GO DUCKS!
Ducks chop wood in the second half. #GoDucks #AlwaysUs pic.twitter.com/YBs2HExBea
— Oregon Men's Basketball (@OregonMBB) January 3, 2021
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