Up by eight with 12:11 to play, Oregon turned ice cold with a 1 for 9 shooting stretch that led to its lead shrinking to one and later disappearing entirely.
Keyon Menifield scored 27 points and gave Washington the lead twice in the final two minutes of regulation before N’Faly Dante (19 points, 13 rebounds) tied it to send at 64 to send the game to overtime, where a back-and-forth extra period went to the Huskies 72-71 Wednesday night at Alaska Airlines Arena.
It was the worst loss by NET ranking (122) of the season for Oregon (15-12, 9-7 Pac-12), which entered with a season-high NET ranking of 48 that will plummet back to reality and far off the bubble of the NCAA Tournament field.
“We’re all disappointed,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said on postgame radio. “That was a game that we should have had. We played well enough to win, but some bad turnovers there late, a couple of separations that we had in the second half and we just let them back in.
“I’m disappointed in myself. I’m disappointed in our guys. We should have handled that better. But just didn’t get it done.”
Will Richardson’s final shot in the lane was blocked by Koren Johnson. Richardson had five assists, two rebounds, steal and no turnovers but was held scoreless for the first time this season and ninth time in his five-year career, with three coming against UW, all losses.
He typified a brutal night for Ducks guards.
Jermaine Couisnard scored 15 of his 18 points after halftime and finished 7 of 17 from the field, including 3 of 8 from three, and 1 of 2 at the free throw line. But Richardson (0 for 3), Keeshawn Barthelemy (0 for 6 FG, 2 for 2 FT), Rivaldo Soares (2 for 8 FG, 2 for 2 FT) and Brennan Rigsby (1 for 4) combined to shoot 3 for 21 from the floor.
“We got experienced guards, but our guards, we didn’t score with our guards,” Altman said. “We didn’t score at a high enough rate with our guards.”
Yet the Ducks won in the paint (39-30) and dominated the boards (42-30) thanks to Dante and Nate Bittle (11 points, seven rebounds), though they only had a 13-9 edge in second-chance points.
Keion Brooks Jr. had 14 points and Braxton Meah had all of his 12 points and four of his eight rebounds in the first half for Washington (14-13, 6-10), which snapped a four-game losing skid. The Huskies converted 12 UO turnovers into 20 points.
Menifield scored 18 points during the second half, while Meah sat for 10 minutes due to what appeared to be a game-changing sequence of three fouls in a span of 75 seconds that gave him four fouls with 16:25 to go. He left with UW down by five and returned with the same deficit.
“We had a couple of chances to knock ‘em out and turnovers really, really hurt us,” Altman said. “Up eight and we put them on the line for four free throws, they get back in it there. Bad fouls. Then we’re up five and Keeshawn just has a couple of really bad turnovers there. Just didn’t get it done.”
