Ducks Fly Past Eagles
Don Smalley

If one was looking for textbook basketball, Matthew Knight Arena was not the place to be.

Neither team shot the lights out, but somehow Oregon (7-3) came away with a 58-45 victory over North Carolina Central in the first night of the Global Sports Hoops Showcase.

After the Eagles tied the game at 28 with 13:14 left, the Ducks finally woke up from their shooting slumber by going on a 19-3 run to take a commanding 47-31 advantage with 6:41 left. That lead was more than North Carolina Central (5-6) could overcome.

"I liked our attention to detail on our defensive end tonight," said head coach Dana Altman. "Especially in the second half . players were freed up and were making plays. But the ball movement still wasn't as good as it needs to be.

"In the first half our man-to-man defense was good but we weren't creating offense with our defense. We had one steal in the first half for two points.

"We rebounded well. Everybody wants to be a scorer because it's considered to be cool, but we have got to find guys who think of themselves as rebounders and defenders."

Oregon started the game hitting on just six of its first 30 shots, but ended the game by hitting 10 of its last 19 shots from the floor.

Garrett Sim led the Ducks with 13 points. He hit three of his three-pointers in that significant run to put the Eagles away.

"Tonight we wanted to focus on the defensive end," said Sim. "Overall we did a good job defensively. Offensively, there are things we could get better at but I think the thing to take away from the game tonight was our intensity and the way we played together.

"We did a good job of playing intense defense. It was a good game for us defensively. We kept playing intense defense and that jump-started our offense in the second half."

EJ Singler also scored 13 with Devoe Joseph adding 10 in his first career star as a Duck. Olu Ashaolu just missed a double-double with eight points and nine rebounds.

Overall the Ducks shot just 33 percent from the field and luckily for them, the Eagles shot worse.

Ray Willis led NCCU with 11 points, but he needed 21 field goal attempts, making five, to earn his total. David Best added 10.

The Eagles shot just 18-of 61 from the field for 29.5 percent and hitting just 4-of-20 from long distance. This was a far cry from their first 10 games, averaging 86 points per game.

The first half especially was filled with bad shots, turnovers and just all around sloppy basketball. The Ducks went into the locker room with a 21-18 lead.

There was nearly a 10-minute stretch where no one could buy a field goal. Oregon shot 23 percent. The Eagles were worse at 20 percent (6-of-30).

Oregon scored the first six points of the game, but NCCU went on a 7-0 run to regain the lead and the rest of the half went back and forth with a few minutes in between baskets.

The Ducks ended the first half the same way they started, on a 6-0 run to take the three-point halftime advantage.

The round robin format continues Wednesday as Prairie View A & M will play North Carolina Central at 4:30 pm before the Ducks take on Stephen F. Austin at 7 pm.