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Washington State has zero problem with Oregon

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This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The Oregon Ducks were such a lousy basketball team this year, Pac-10 tournament organizers stuck them in the Los Angeles Clippers’ locker room.

It’s unclear who was offended most.

Maybe it was the people watching the debacle, which featured 26% shooting from the Ducks in a 62-40 loss. Granted, the Cougars have been the conference’s best defense this year. They actually held Arizona State to 38 points -- twice. Still, these kinds of scores should only be acceptable in the Pac-10 when a game is called early on account of rain.

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Some off-duty sports writers who were trying to enjoy their evening couldn’t last more than five minutes into the second half.

The only reason Los Angeles fans were interested is that this result sends Wazzu into today’s quarterfinal against UCLA at 8:30 p.m. The Cougars have won four of their last five and should provide a decent warmup for the Bruins. Alfred Aboya will have to contain center Aron Baynes, who had 20 points and 8 rebounds on Wednesday. The big man shot an impressive 6-of-6 from the charity stripe.

Mark Medina and I pulled together a good assortment of postgame video reactions. One of the more poignant ones (above) features Ducks talking about how hard it is for the season to end. Oregon Coach Ernie Kent not only recapped the game for reporters, but also gave a preview of next season’s Pac-10. It will be interesting to see if he’s still coaching in it.

As for the victors (until tonight), Baynes and Caleb Forrest talked about their victory and Coach Tony Bennett talked about the Cougs’ last trip to L.A., which set off their hot streak.

-- Adam Rose

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