Iowa’s All-American center Luka Garza scored 36 points and grabbed nine rebounds and if Dana Altman knew that stat before the game, he probably would’ve packed his bags and headed back to Eugene.
Despite Garza’s incredible performance, he didn’t receive much help from his teammates and Oregon was on fire offensively as the Ducks defeated the No. 2 seed Hawkeyes 95-80 in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Indianapolis.
“Well, I’m very proud of the guys” said Oregon head coach Dana Altman after the game.
“Man, they played hard. We got the rebounding tied up, and Garza is such a good player and just ripped us up, but we really wanted to make sure that they didn’t get the threes going and beat us from the three-point line,” Altman said. “We knew we didn’t match up inside with him, so we just wanted to make sure the threes didn’t kill us, and I thought our guys did a tremendous job with focus and talking on the defensive end the second half.
“I thought the first half we got beat in transition, really gave up some easy baskets. I thought we were in trouble. But the guys did a much better job the second half.”
Now the Ducks will play the winner of the Kansas-USC game next weekend.
Oregon and Kansas has history this time of year, but if the Ducks face USC, they’ll be looking to avenge one of their poorer performances of the season.
None of that would have mattered if Oregon didn’t take care of business against a 22-9 Iowa team.
Justifiably so, Altman was worried about how his team would come out since they had not played a game in 10 games, a semi-final loss to the Beavers in the Pac-12 tournament.
His worries subsided in the first five minutes as the Ducks were on fire shooting the ball and they never really cooled off. They shot 38-of-58 from the field for 60 percent, including 11-of-25 from three-point range. Oregon’s 56 first half points were the most in the Ducks’ tourney history.
They took a 56-46 halftime lead and didn’t let Iowa cut into that lead. The Hawkeyes never drew to within single digits. Oregon once led 78-59 with 11 minutes to go. It was academic from there.
Garza was more than a handful as he scored 22 points in the first half, but in the first nine minutes after halftime, the Duck defense stifled the center and held him to just a few points, allowing the offense to build an insurrmountable lead.
With such a huge deficit, the Hawkeyes couldn’t afford to keep pounding it down low to Garza. They needed threes and a lot of them. Thankfully for Oregon, Iowa wasn’t a sharpshooting team on this day. The Hawkeyes were 8-of-25 from long range and 31-of-68 (45.6 percent) overall.
“It got a little easier because they weren’t shooting the ball real well from three. We were able to collapse a little bit more when some of their subs were in because they’re not quite as … their numbers aren’t quite as good as some of their starters,” Altman said.
“We really felt like we could collapse around Garza a little bit more. I thought Franck (Kepnang) did a great job. I thought Franck gave us great minutes both first half and second half of changing the game a little bit. So very pleased with his effort. He just played hard. He gave up two threes on a pick-and-pop that he just wasn’t quite ready for that, but other than that, I thought he did a tremendous job.”
The Ducks’ balanced scoring attack was more than Iowa could handle.
They spread you out. It’s a hard team to cover in so many different ways.
“They stretch your defense said Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery after the game.
“We tried man, zone, we tried pressing them,… had moderate success with all three, not enough in any one.”
Chris Duarte showed why he was named the Pac-12 Player of the Year by the Associated Press as he led Oregon with 23 points. He also had a career-high of seven assists.
“It feels great for everybody, especially for those guys that haven’t been here, like Eugene (Omoruyi), Eric (Williams), myself and a couple more guys,” Duarte said on moving on to the Sweet 16. “It feels great. We are very, very excited about it, and we hope we keep doing this and keep going, keep moving on.”
But the senior guard wasn’t alone in torching the Hawkeyes.
LJ Figueroa’s five threes helped him score 21 points and Will Richardson filled the stat sheet with 19 points, seven assists and six rebounds. Eugene Omoruyi added 17 points, six rebounds and five assists.
Oregon had 25 assists on 38 field goals made and turned the ball over just 11 times, many of those coming in garbage time when the game was well in hand.
The Ducks’ victory gave the Pac-12 a perfect 7-0 record so far in the NCAA tournament and they joined Oregon State in the Sweet 16.
“Well, you know, since we don’t get that much respect, I feel like we don’t get the respect that we deserve, it looks good on our conference,” Duarte said. “It tells you guys that our conference, we have talent, and we are really good.
Oregon was scheduled to play VCU in the first round, but the Rams had to bow out of the tourney due to Covid protocols. So far, VCU is the only team, and hopefully the last, to have their season end because of the virus.