Ducks powerless to overcome KU

By Chris Wristen     Dec 14, 2003

? Two scoreboard failures during Oregon’s first three games gave Ducks forward Ian Crosswhite every reason to be suspicious when a power outage delayed the start of the second half Saturday against Kansas at the Feist Shootout.

“It seems like every game this year something goes wrong,” Crosswhite said following the game.

A power surge knocked out all the electricity in Kemper Arena and caused an 18-minute delay, but it simply might have been finishing the job the Ducks started in the first half.

Oregon (3-1) came into the game averaging 10 three-pointers per game while connecting on 30 of 64 trey tries this season. Overall, the Ducks were shooting 49 percent from the field.

Rather than shooting lights out against No. 5 Kansas, however, the Ducks shot like they were constantly in the dark during their 77-67 loss to the Jayhawks (5-1).

Jay Anderson gave Oregon its only lead of the game, 2-0, on an early layup, but then the Ducks missed their next 10 shots and struggled to recover the rest of the way.

They missed four layups early in the game, clanked wide-open jumpers and put on a masonry clinic from three-point land. Oregon’s bitter 26-percent shooting in the first half actually looked toasty compared to its frigid seven-percent from beyond the arc (1-for-13).

A blanket of snow covered the ground outside, but the Ducks’ offense was the coldest thing in Kansas City.

“There were easy shots. We should have been a little more patient,” said Crosswhite, who lamented missing his share of open looks in a 4-for-10, 12-point performance.

Things got so ugly for Oregon that after Brandon Lincoln airballed a three-point try midway through the first half, senior All-America candidate Luke Jackson gazed up at the video board and watched the replay in disbelief.

“We came out tight and just didn’t shoot well,” said Jackson, whose 27 points was Oregon’s lone bright spot offensively. “We felt like we could beat them if we just played well. We are capable of running better, and we needed to block out more and push it more in transition.”

Oregon put together a three-minute stretch in the second half where it clicked enough to put together an 11-0 run. Oregon pulled within 49-47, but six more misses and five turnovers during a 21-5 Kansas run put a muzzle on the Ducks’ hopes.

They hit just 35 percent of their shots (21-for-60) and made just six of 29 of their three-pointers, but Ducks coach Ernie Kent said he wasn’t discouraged by his squad’s poor offensive performance. To him, it was just a case of an unfamiliar gym and an uncharacteristically dark day shooting.

“To me, this is one of those games where if we played them up in Portland, at our home court, we would have been the team hitting more shots,” Kent said. “They played really hard and had some shots that they weren’t hitting before. They got away with the victory.

“Early in the game they had us back on our heels. This was our first big road game against a top-10 opponent, and Kansas did a great job of taking advantage of that.”

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