Oregon makes the plays at the end to get much-needed victory against Arizona State

Oregon survived a frenetic finish to earn a hotly contested victory against Arizona State Saturday night.

After the Sun Devils turned the Ducks’ 12-point second-half advantage into a one-point game with 1:18 to play, Oregon scored the final points from the free-throw line to secure the 75-70 Pac-12 men’s basketball victory at Desert Financial Arena in Tempe.

The win came 24 days after the Ducks (14-10, 8-5 Pac-12) lost in a 90-73 rout at home by the Sun Devils (16-8, 7-6).

It was Oregon’s fifth win in its last seven games and moves them into a tie with Utah for fourth-place in the conference standings. The Utes were idle Saturday with a Sunday game against California. Ahead of them are UCLA (10-2), Arizona (10-3) and USC (9-3).

“It just gets us to next week,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said on his postgame radio show. “We got the L.A. schools coming in and obviously, really big games … we’re just gonna have to play really hard, really well and try and build something here.”

N’Faly Dante paced the Ducks with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting and was instrumental for Oregon in the final minutes.

Dante scored the Ducks' final two field goals, as his running hook with 2:32 to play and layup with 1:34 left answered Arizona State's efforts to stay within a point of the lead.

The Ducks led 71-70 with 46 seconds to play when a turnover by Oregon's Keeshawn Barthelemy had the Sun Devils on the fast break. But a missed 3-pointer was rebounded by Jermaine Cousinard and the Ducks' guard made 1-of-2 free-throw attempts put them up 72-70 with 40 seconds left.

Nate Bittle rebounded another miss on ASU’s ensuing possession, and after the ball got batted around by players from both teams it eventually was scooped up by Dante, who was fouled hard as he went in for a breakaway dunk.

Dante had to momentarily leave the game and Bittle made 1-of-2 from the line in his place as the Ducks’ lead grew to 73-70 with 16 seconds to play.

Desmond Cambridge Jr. missed on a corner 3-point attempt coming out of a timeout with five seconds to play for the Sun Devils, Couisnard grabbed the rebound, was fouled and made both free throws to put the game out of reach with two seconds to play.

Barthelemy, who returned to the starting lineup for the first time since November, finished with 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting, and Will Richardson had 14 points. Both players made three 3-pointers.

Oregon trailed 30-27 at halftime but outscored Arizona State 25-10 during the first 8:30 of the second half to go up 52-40. Barthelemy, whose 3-pointer in the final seconds of the first half kept it a one-shot score at the break, scored 10 points at the start of the second half to help the Ducks pull ahead.

Overall, the Ducks shot 47% from the field and 44% from 3-point range. They also outrebounded the Sun Devils 37-31, though Oregon had 17 turnovers as well — one off its season high.

Arizona State, which shot 52% from the field and made 13-of-29 3-pointers in its win against Oregon in January, shot 44% Saturday and made 8-of-24 from deep.

“We turned the dang thing over too much but we made some plays when we had to and got some big rebounds,” Altman said. “ … Dante really took charge there late and we got it to him, so really pleased. Guys did a good job and it was a good win for us.”

Follow Chris Hansen on Twitter @chansen_RG or email at chansen@registerguard.com.

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Oregon vs. Southern California

8 p.m., Thursday at Matthew Knight Arena. TV: ESPN2. Radio: KUJZ-FM (95.3)

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon Ducks make plays at the end to beat Arizona State Sun Devils