Another Bad Loss for the Ducks

With five minutes left in Oregon’s second straight lopsided defeat, a player for the 12th-ranked Ducks rifled a pass to Ernie Kent -- one of Oregon’s all-time top players.

But Kent was a player for Oregon in the mid-1970s, and now is the coach. He caught the ball cleanly on the sideline, then slowly handed it to an official.

It was that kind of day for the Ducks at Stanford. They completed a lost weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area by losing, 81-57, Saturday to injury-depleted Stanford -- Oregon’s 17th straight road loss to the Cardinal.

Julius Barnes had 15 of his 17 points in the second half, and Matt Lottich scored 15 points on five-for-seven three-point shooting for Stanford, 11-4 overall, 2-1 Pacific 10.

Coupled with Thursday’s 88-72 loss at California, Saturday’s loss means Oregon (10-4, 1-3) risks falling out of the national rankings for the first time this season.

“Mentally, we’re all down right now. We’re a much better basketball team than we showed this weekend,” Kent said. “I know myself that I’m down.”

Luke Ridnour led the Ducks with 19 points, becoming the 24th Oregon player with 1,000 points -- he now has 1,014.

“We need to see where we’re at, we need to do some soul searching,” Ridnour said. “This Pac-10 is serious business. We have to be able to compete on the road.”

Stanford held Oregon to 33% shooting and outrebounded the Ducks, 45-26.

“Well, we picked a good time to put in the best performance of the year. We were aggressive, we were positive, we moved the ball, we shot and above all else we defended,” Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery said. “We seem to play much better against teams with reputations.”

No. 2 Arizona 79, Washington 61 -- The Wildcats took control with an 18-4 run in the second half at Tucson to remain unbeaten in the Pac-10.

Arizona (11-1, 4-0) is off to its best conference start in three years. The Huskies (6-7, 1-3) lost their 13th consecutive game in the state of Arizona. They have been swept at Arizona State and Arizona 13 times in their last 14 visits and are 2-29 in their last 31 games in the state.

Arizona State 96, Washington State 55 -- The Sun Devils (11-4, 3-1) opened the game with a 12-0 run and led, 30-7, midway through the first half at Tempe, Ariz.

The Cougars (5-8, 0-4) had to play part of the first half without Marcus Moore, the Pac-10’s leading scorer. He was in for 2 1/2 minutes before leaving because of bone chips in his right ankle.

He missed his first four shots, part of a five-for-23 start by the Cougars.

California 78, Oregon State 73 -- Joe Shipp scored a career high 35 points at Berkeley to help the Bears (10-2, 3-0) defeat the Beavers for the ninth straight time.

Against the Pac-10’s top-ranked defense, Shipp made 12 of 16 shots. Phillip Ricci led Oregon State (7-6, 0-4) with 23 points.