Dana Altman’s Oregon Ducks finally clicked on both offense and defense on Wednesday evening against the Portland Pilots, a game Oregon won 96-71.
It was a balanced scoring attack at Matthew Knight Arena, with four Ducks over 15 points, led by 20 from N’Faly Dante and 19 from De’Vion Harmon.
While the Pilots hung around for a bit in the second half, mostly thanks to scorching hot shooting from beyond the arc, the Ducks were eventually able to put them away thanks to toughness in the paint from N’Faly Dante (20 points and nine rebounds) and a vintage performance from Will Richardson, who had 16 points, six rebounds, and six assists.
The Ducks are back in the win column, and in convincing fashion, but they’ll have their hands full with the No. 1 ranked Baylor Bears on Saturday evening, before taking on Pepperdine early next week before Christmas.
More performances like this and the Ducks will start to turn this campaign around, especially if Dante – who had easily his best game of the season – continues to play this aggressively down in the paint.