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Oregon committed 24 fouls and allowed Santa Clara to shoot 21-for-29 from the free-throw line.
Santa Clara committed 23 fouls and allowed Oregon to shoot 24-for-27 from the free-throw line.
Such was the story
Wednesday in the Ducks' 94-71 win over the Broncos in front of 8,491 at McArthur
Court.
Oregon (4-1 overall) coasted to the victory in the end, but chippy play and
a Pacific-10 Conference mentality -- more fouls equals less physical play --
kept the score close for the first 25 minutes of the game.
"I thought it was a very good second half for us," Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. "The foul trouble kind of knocked us out of rhythm a bit. Once we were able to settle down and keep our big guys on the floor we did a good job."
Foul trouble haunted the Ducks and Broncos (6-4) from the get-go. The teams combined for 21 fouls in the first half -- 12 by Santa Clara and nine by Oregon -- and saw six players overall gain at least four fouls in the game.
Santa Clara's Brandon Rohe and Oregon's Matt Short both fouled out.
In between fouls, Oregon spaced out scoring runs that paced it to the 23-point victory.
"I think it was a matter of time until we figured out what was going on. [Then we] started to get out in transition and get some easy baskets," Oregon's Luke Jackson said. "Sooner or later, we were going to make a run."
The Ducks pulled away on the shoulders of Jackson, who scored 15 points in the second half. He scored eight points in the first half, but found the holes Santa Clara left open in the second half, shooting 5-of-9 from the field.
"[It was] just taking advantage of opportunities," he said. "Over time they're going to leave us open. I felt like we broke Santa Clara down in the second half and shots started to fall."
Five Ducks ended the game in double figures, with Jay Anderson (11 points) and Aaron Brooks (13 points) both posting career highs. Andre Joseph had 15 points, hitting 2-of-4 3-pointers and Ian Crosswhite had 10 points to go along with three rebounds.
"We didn't have everything going tonight, but we gutted it out," Anderson said.
Oregon employed its bench -- all 10 Ducks played double-figure minutes -- and Kent played a number of combinations. At one point in the game, Jackson, Joseph, Brooks and guard James Davis saw action on the floor at the same time. Kent also regularly rotated his forwards -- Anderson, Crosswhite, Short and Zahn. The quartet ended the game with a combined 29 points and 16 rebounds as the Ducks battled the physical Broncos.
"The system is a nice system," Brooks said of Oregon's offense. "I wouldn't say [all the forwards] are equal, but they all know the system."
Oregon overpowered Santa Clara under the boards Thursday, holding the Broncos to only 32 points in the second half. Oregon out-rebounded Santa Clara 34-20 and held the Broncos to just two 3-pointers. The Ducks also kept Santa Clara at 40.9 percent shooting from the field in the second half en route to 32 points -- seven less than in the first half.
Doron Perkins led Santa Clara with 20 points and Sean Denison pitched in with 16.
"There were two kinds of halves," Santa Clara head coach Dick Davey said. "The second half, defensively, we had a real disaster for 10 minutes."
That 10-minute span featured a 15-6 run by Oregon that put the Ducks up 80-59 with 6:14 left. The run came 13 minutes after Santa Clara pulled to within four, 46-42, with 18:09 left after a free throw by Travis Neison.
"I think we spread it out a little bit in the second half and it made a big difference offensively for us," Kent said.
Oregon visits Portland Monday in the team's final nonconference game of the season.