Nothing Ducky at Haas

Oregon lost 5 of their last 6 games, and was systematically demolished at Stanford Thursday as the Pac-10's top-scoring team was held to 43 points and shot 11 of 41 from the floor. That all changed Saturday at Haas Pavilion before a quiet crowd of 10,407, where the Ducks of Oregon beat down the Bears of Berkeley, 92-70.

Whatever Ducks coach Ernie Kent said in practice Friday resulted in Cal's worst home loss in a season of too many home conference losses. This dismantling by Oregon gave the Ducks their first win in the Bay Area since February 2000, and dropped the Bears (14-9, 5-6) into sixth place in the Pac-10.

Cal is now just 2-5 at home; the "good news" is that their next three games are on the road, where they are 3-1 in conference play.

It's not hard to find the reasons for this loss. Ryan Anderson, one of only six players in the country averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds, took just three shots in the second half. In Oregon, Tajuan Porter was held scoreless by the Bears. Saturday he racked up 23 - which means he single-handedly accounted for the spread in the game's final score.

GoldenBearSports.com Michael Pimentel Cal vs, Oregon, Haas Pavilion

If that's not telling enough, Oregon shot 82% from the free throw line in the second half. They also shot 80% from the floor. And just to complete the Trifecta of Doom, they shot 80% from behind the arc - sometimes from WAY behind the arc.

Four days ago, Cal was one of the best teams in the conference at defending three-point shot attempts. But then a poor-shooting Oregon State team popped in 11 treys on 31 attempts in a losing effort on Thursday, and on Saturday a very good-shooting Oregon team hoisted up another 31 longballs. The Ducks hit a school record 18 of those threes, some seemingly from behind the Oregon bench. The Ducks shot an incomprehensible 59.2% from the floor, and an unbelievable 58.1% from three.

"Obviously, they had a great shooting night and their team is loaded with shooters, but it was definitely our fault," said Anderson. "When they started making shots, we should have come down and defended and tried to stop the next play, but we couldn't do it. That really killed us."

How hard was it to watch? Oregon did not have an offensive rebound in the second half - and Cal had only three defensive rebounds in that same stretch - because it took the Ducks 15 minutes of play before they even had three misses that created rebounds.

During that same 15 minutes, the Pac-10's leading scorer, Anderson, had one touch and one shot. Cal had no stops on defense for what seemed like 10 minutes at a stretch; all the traffic lights were as green as the Ducks' uniforms.

GoldenBearSports.com Michael Pimentel Jamal Boykin Battles

Despite being fronted all night by Oregon's post players, Anderson still led Cal's scorers with 17 points and six rebounds, while point guard Jerome Randle chipped in with 17 points and four assists with no turnovers. The Bears had just eight turnovers in the game - but their three-point shooting betrayed them (5-for-20) just as surely as Oregon's carried them.

Oregon, known as an offensive team, completely stymied Cal's #2 scorer, Patrick Christopher. If you didn't watch the game, you wouldn't know he played - 0-for-7 from the floor, 2 free throws, no rebounds, 1 assist and 2 turnovers in 30 minutes.

Anderson submitted his entry into the Understatement of the Year contest: "He (Christopher) is a huge part of our team. When he's not in the flow of the game, it hurts our team."

Jamal Boykin played 33 minutes as a starter, the most floor time he's seen as a Golden Bear. He contributed 10 points, 3 assists, a steal and 5 rebounds, plus the energetic and emotional play that is his trademark. The operative question is, where will his minutes come from when DeVon Hardin regains full strength? Hardin was again limited to 17 (productive) minutes, scoring 13 points on 5-of-6 shooting, but with just two rebounds.

The answer most likely is from senior forward Eric Vierneisel. Vierneisel played 15 minutes, with two points on free throws, two assists and a turnover. Again tellingly, in the 15 minutes Vierneisel was on the floor for Cal the Bears were out-scored by 18 points in a 22-point loss.

Nican Robinson from Oakland Tech High via UCLA is Braun's latest walk-on contributor. Robinson was the first choice in the rotation when Randle needed rest, and he stayed on the floor when Randle returned. With nine points on 3-of-3 from behind the arc, he was Cal's second leading scorer at the break when the Bears trailed by just two.

Then the second half began ominously and got steadily worse. Oregon had zero points off turnovers in the first half, but the second of game-high scorer Bryce Taylor's (28 pts) three straight layups came off a turnover and the rout was on.

Except for a Randle jumper in the midst of Taylor's spurt, Cal did not score from the floor until a Hardin turnaround with 15 minutes left to play. By then, Porter was in the middle of a three-minute stretch when he took all of Oregon's shots and made all of them - from 20 to 25 feet away from the hoop - stretching a 41-34 lead to 53-38 and effectively ending the competition with 14 minutes still left to play.

"For the first time in a while, we couldn't get into sync offensively," said coach Ben Braun, making his entry into the Understatement Contest, "We settled for some outside shots which weren't the shots we would normally take."

These Bears are as up-and-down as is their conference. Washington State righted their leaky ship with a 24-point rout of USC, re-tightening the cluster behind leaders UCLA and Stanford in the standings.

Much of the positive momentum from Cal's Washington trip might seem to have been dissipated, but they are still technically in the hunt for a tournament berth. A sweep of the Arizona schools (certainly no less likely than the sweep of Washington schools seemed two weeks ago) would be a positive (and almost required) step in that direction.

GoldenBearSports.com Michael Pimentel Louis Reynaud

"We always have to look for the next game and keep winning," said Anderson. "It definitely hurts because we had a nice run going and confidence was high. I don't know what it was tonight, we just weren't focused and prepared like we usually are."

The first order of business: The Bears have to solve two pressing problems. They need not just to shore up, but actually FIND, some perimeter defense. They may not face anyone with as quick a release as Porter who shot several of his three's while still moving, but they have to make teams think twice about taking 50-60% of their shots from beyond the arc.

Braun agrees: "It's up to the guys to really take pride defensively. That's the problem right now. We have to play better defense. That's a must for our team."

Then they'll have to do a much better job of getting the ball into their big men inside. It's indefensible for Anderson to have only three attempts in a half of basketball. Cal needs to concentrate in practice on entry passes to the block, becoming much more adept at changing the angle of their passes when their post players are being fronted or denied the baseline.

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