Ducks Fend Off Vikings
Rick Morgan

E.J. Singler's 19 points led the Ducks past a stubborn Portland State Viking team 79-70 Monday evening at Matthew Knight Arena. Garrett Sim and Devoe Joseph each added 13 to help Oregon improve its season mark to 6-2.

"If we could have stopped the game with six minutes to go I would have felt good," said head coach Dana Altman.

At that point the Ducks were leading by fourteen points and seemed about to roll the Vikings over. But Portland State was a step quicker to a couple loose balls, Oregon sent the Vikings to the free throw line needlessly and suddenly Portland State was right back in the ballgame.

"We let down on defense in the last six minutes and they had an eight point run," said Altman.

When the Vikings' Michael Hurthung knocked down a 3-ball at 1:31 he cut Oregon's lead to three, 71-68.

As in his debut two nights earlier, Devoe Joseph had an impact for the Ducks offensively at a crucial moment. It was back-to-back threes against Fresno State that sparked Oregon's victory Saturday; against the Vikings it was a soft jumper from 10 feet that answered Harthung's bomb, then rolling box cars - six for six - from the line when the Vikings were forced to foul.

"He has a lot of experience even though he has only played two games with us," said his backcourt mate, Garret Sim. "He played at Minnesota - a top-tier team - and tonight he did a good job."

"We are making progress slowly," said Altman. "It's not as quickly as we want it to be. I don't like the pace of the offense, it's too slow, so we have a tremendous amount of work to do. We have to get much more physical on the boards and the guards have to rebound."

Oregon did out rebound Portland State 34-30 and took better care of the ball, reducing their turnovers to 7 after committing 16 in their previous outing.

The Ducks forced a dozen Viking miscues and converted them for 20 points. Oregon shot 45.8% from the floor, going 27-59 - a bit better than Portland State's 24-56 (42.9%).

Senior forward Tyrone Nared was apparently lost for multiple games with a knee injury in the second half.

"He is going to be out for awhile," said Altman. "We have to do an MRI tomorrow, but he is going to miss the next four games at least or more."