Washington, Oregon look to rebound from tough losses

Washington and Oregon are coming off disappointing losses last week heading into their future Big Ten rivalry game Thursday night at Eugene, Ore. Washington lost at home to traditional rival Washington State 90-87 in overtime and Oregon fell to UCLA 71-63 in Los Angeles. The Huskies (12-10, 4-7 Pac-12) and Ducks (15-7, 7-4) are headed to the Big Ten next season and they will take their Pacific Northwest rivalry with them. When the teams met in Seattle on Jan. 4, Oregon won 76-74 behind Jackson Shelstad's 17 points and Jermaine Couisnard's 16 points and eight rebounds. Oregon is in contention to win the last Pac-12 title with the conference disbanding after this season. The Ducks are a game behind No. 8 Arizona (17-5, 8-3) with five weeks left in the regular season. Oregon fell behind by as many as 18 in the opening eight minutes of the game at UCLA before it rallied to take a one-point halftime lead. The score was tied at 58 with 5:23 to play, but the Bruins pulled away with a 13-3 run as Oregon was held to two field goals in the final 4:30 of the game. "We needed to hit some shots there," Oregon coach Dana Altman said. "We had some really good looks to take the lead, keep the lead in the second half, and we go 1-for-10 from three. I thought we had some really good looks. We had to hit something, and we didn't." N'Faly Dante had 16 points and eight rebounds to lead the Ducks. In Washington's loss to Washington State, Keion Brooks Jr. scored a career-high 35 points, but missed an off-balance three-point attempt with two seconds left in overtime that could have tied the score. Brooks was 12-of-23 shooting from the floor and 11 of 13 at the free-throw line. "I'm sick for our fans," Washington coach Mike Hopkins said. "We just couldn't get some stops when we needed stops. We didn't execute when we had to execute." Moses Wood finished with 18 points and Sahvir Wheeler had 16 points and five assists, but Wheeler also had six turnovers. --Field Level Media