It took seven minutes for Stanford men’s basketball (12-11, 5-6 Pac-12) to score against Oregon (15-9, 6-5 Pac-12). The rest of the game wasn’t much better; the Cardinal lost 69-46 to the Ducks and never led.
Stanford missed its first 13 shots and fell behind 16-2 while shooting 1-21. On the night, the Cardinal shot 27.3 percent from the field and 16.7 percent from behind the arc.
Oregon’s Kenny Wooten blocked six shots in the first half alone, bringing the energy to Matthew Knight Arena. “I know they wanted to penetrate, and I feel like after a couple of blocks they started looking for another way to score,” Wooten said.
“Kenny set an unbelievable tone that first 10 minutes,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said. “Just made them a little hesitant offensively.”
Down 30-20 at the end of the first half, no Stanford player had more than four points.
However, after starting the game 2-24, Stanford ended the first half 5-7. The momentum carried over into the second half, as freshman guard Bryce Wills’ six points in the first three minutes of the second half and a sophomore forward KZ Okpala three-pointer cut the Oregon lead to seven.
The three was Okpala’s lone success on four attempts. His ten points came on an abysmal 3-14 shooting.
Wills scored a team-high 13 points, including a highlight reel dunk, but was just 3-9 from the free throw line. As a team, Stanford was just 13-21 from the charity stripe.
Oregon went on an 8-0 run following the Okpala three, and Stanford was never able to bring it back to within single digits.
Payton Pritchard kept the Cardinal at bay with a game-high 20 points on 8-13.
“[Pritchard] was really good tonight,” Altman said. “Straight line drives, got to the rim, finished some tough shots.”
Louis King contributed 16 points for the Ducks with three steals and a team-high seven rebounds.
The Cardinal were led in rebounds by senior center Josh Sharma’s ten, and his eight points came on an efficient 2-5 from the field and 4-4 from the line.
Stanford finished the game with their second-worst shooting performance of the season, 27.3 percent. Oregon, on the other hand, got its first Pac-12 sweep of the season after beating Cal Wednesday.
“We’ve been trying to get a sweep from day one,” the Ducks’ Victor Bailey Jr. said. “That’s the goal when you go out there. We were just able to execute and get that done this week.”
The Cardinal were playing without their second-leading scorer, sophomore guard Daejon Davis, who suffered an apparent head injury against Oregon State. Freshman guard Cormac Ryan got the start in his absence, with redshirt junior Marcus Sheffield seeing significant minutes while sophomore Oscar da Silva played only ten.
Stanford will have to figure it out before USC (13-11, 6-5) comes to Maples Pavilion Wednesday.
Contact Daniel Martinez-Krams at danielmk ‘at’ stanford.edu.