Oregon men begin tough stretch with impressive win against Utah

Oregon’s pledge to take advantage of the schedule these next few weeks and climb back into the race for the Pac-12 title got off to good start Saturday night.

The Ducks began a stretch of five straight games against the five teams that started the day either tied with or ahead of them in the conference standings with a 68-56 men’s basketball victory against Utah in front of an announced crowd of 8,228 in Matthew Knight Arena.

It was the fourth win in five games for Oregon (13-9, 7-4 Pac-12), which beat Utah (15-8, 8-4) for the 11th straight time overall and second time this season.

It was also the Ducks’ first sweep of a weekend series during the Pac-12 season. They beat Colorado Thursday.

Oregon is now 1½ games behind first-place UCLA (8-2) in the standings with road games against Arizona (8-3) and Arizona State (6-5) next weekend and then home against the Bruins and USC (7-3) in two weeks.

“We just gotta get ready to play the next one,” coach Dana Altman said. “I don’t want them to look at it as a stretch; just the next game. We’ve got some very talented teams coming up.”

The Ducks looked ready against the Utes, taking advantage of two long scoring droughts by Utah to initially pull ahead in the first half and then extend its lead in the second.

Jermaine Couisnard led Oregon with 18 points and Will Richardson scored 12 and had seven assists.

But it was N’Faly Dante and Nate Bittle who ignited the Ducks. The two centers rotated in and out for each other and combined for 18 points, 16 rebounds and four blocks.

Dante missed Thursday’s win against the Buffaloes after tweaking his knee during pregame warmups. Bittle responded to Dante’s absence with his first career double-double, recording 11 points and 13 rebounds.

Dante was good to go Saturday, but went into Altman’s office before the game and said the same group that started Thursday had earned the right to start again. That meant the senior came off the bench for the first time this season.

“He didn’t have to do that,” Altman said. “That’s one guy who’s really thinking about the team. I like that.”

Bittle got the Ducks going with five points, a rebound and a block before Dante subbed in at the 15:20 mark of the first half.

By halftime, Dante had eight points, seven rebounds and a block. Bittle had seven points, two rebounds and a block.

“I thought we played really hard,” Altman said. “Nate played really hard. Dante offensively in the first half was really good.”

Utah did plenty to help Oregon.

In the first half, they went 10 minutes without a field goal after taking an 11-9 lead with 14:35 to play. The Ducks took advantage with an 18-3 run to go up 27-14. They were 7-for-16 from the field during that run while the Utes went 0-for-12.

Oregon was up 36-25 at halftime and extended that lead to 62-46 as Utah again went cold offensively, going nine minutes without a field goal starting with 11:00 to play.

Utah was hindered by the loss of guard Gabe Madsen, who had to be helped to the locker room two minutes into the game with an apparent leg injury.

Madsen is the Pac-12’s most prolific 3-point shooter, leading the conference in 3-pointers made (56), attempted (150) and made per game (2.5). He didn’t attempt a shot Saturday.

The Ducks finished outshooting the Utes 42.9% (27-for-58) to 28.6% (16-for-57), and outrebounding them 41-32.

It was Utah’s worst shooting performance since making 27.9% of their field-goal attempts against USC on Jan. 2, 2021.

Utah center Branden Carlson, the Pac-12’s No. 4 scorer (16.8 points per game), No. 5 rebounder (7.5) and No. 2 shot blocker (2.3), had 13 points, eight rebounds and no blocks. But he shot 2-of-14 from the field, 0-for-6 on 3-point attempts and scored nine of his points from the foul line.

It’s the type of performance the Ducks will need to duplicate several more times going forward.

“We know what we’re facing,” Couisnard said. “We’ve got an older group so we just need to take it day by day and just try and get better.”

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

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Up Next

Oregon at No. 6 Arizona

7:30 p.m., Thursday at McKale Center, Tucson, Ariz. TV: ESPN. Radio: KUJZ-FM (95.3)

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon Ducks win 11th straight men's basketball game against Utah Utes