EUGENE, Ore. “”mdash; Darren Collison knew it would come. It was just a matter of when.
For the majority of the first half, the notoriously raucous crowd at Oregon’s McArthur Court was uncharacteristically quiet as the Bruins built as much as a 13-point lead on the hometown Ducks.
Yet with a 12-6 run by the Ducks to start the second half that closed the deficit to three, came the usual intensity and ear-shattering noise of Mac Court, urging the Ducks to repeat an upset of the Bruins similar to what happened two seasons ago.
Fortunately for Collison and the Bruins, there was no rerun.
The No. 12 UCLA men’s basketball team (12-2, 2-0 Pac-10) outlasted the Ducks (6-8, 0-2), 83-74, overcoming a closely contested second half and opening the Pac-10 conference season with a sweep on the road.
Collison, a senior and a veteran of dealing with the Mac Court environment, was certainly not surprised by what he got from the crowd in Eugene.
“That was exactly the atmosphere I was going to expect, the same intensity I was going to expect from Oregon,” Collison said. “I thought (our) guys, they handled it real well, given that it was our second big road test.”
Collison led the Bruins with 22 points and nine assists and helped seal the game by converting all six of his free throw attempts in the final two minutes.
At halftime, the Bruins seemed poised to put the young Ducks away with ease, heading into the break up 40-29 while turning in one of their best shooting performances of the season, hitting eight of their 10 attempts from beyond the 3-point line.
Additionally, the Bruins pressured the Ducks with their usual intensity on defense, limiting Oregon to just 35 percent shooting in the half.
Yet, much like his senior point guard, UCLA coach Ben Howland knew the Ducks would not go away quietly.
“This place is so hard to play, and then, they’re a talented group, Oregon is, and I knew they’d make their run to come back,” Howland said. “You knew they were going to make the run, the building was alive. I wish for once we could show up here and not have the building so ready for us.”
The 11-point halftime lead was whittled away to just a three-point margin four times throughout the second half due to the Bruins’ inability to maintain the hot shooting from beyond the arc. They were 5-of-12 in the second half. The switch by the Ducks to a 2-3 zone defense and the emergence of Oregon point guard Tajuan Porter, who finished with a game-high 24 points, also kept the game close.
But a patient Bruin attack on offense countered the effectiveness of the Oregon zone.
Up 64-60 with 6:09 remaining in the game, the Bruins finished on a 19-14 run to come away with their second Pac-10 victory.
“The second half was a little bit of a struggle, but we got it together,” Collison said. “That’s what you’re going to have on the road. You going to go up against times like that but you have to remain together.”
One pleasant surprise for the Bruins was the shooting of forward Josh Shipp, who finished the game with 17 points on 5-of-6 shooting.
Shipp, who struggled with his shot for much of last season, only attempted shots from beyond the arc.
“I know I can shoot the ball; I just got to go out there and shoot it,” Shipp said.
“I’m a good shooter; it showed today. I just have to have confidence and keep shooting those shots,” said Shipp.
Despite the run made by the Ducks in the second half to cut the game close, Collison said he never faltered on the court and that the Bruins never went away from their attack. It was all about coming out on top.
“This game is about runs,” Collison said. “Everybody is going to have their runs here and there, and it was fortunate we had the run at the end of the game to close it out.”