EUGENE — On a night when Oregon’s best weren’t at their best, the Ducks were able to lean on other starters to maintain a lead until Will Richardson closed out a fourth consecutive win.
De’Vion Harmon scored a season-high 21 points, N’Faly Dante had 12 points and seven rebounds and Richardson scored all of his 12 points in the final 10 minutes as Oregon defeated Stanford 68-60 Thursday night at Matthew Knight Arena.
Harmon went 8 of 15 from the field to record his seventh career 20-point game and first with the Ducks. He scored 12 points and Dante had eight in the first half, as the Ducks (16-7, 9-3 Pac-12) forced 13 turnovers and had three blocks to take a 32-24 lead into halftime.
“We got a lot of guys that can get a bucket,” Harmon said. “I think I’m a really good basketball player. I can put the ball in the cup. Tonight was my night, but I’ve been doing this for a long time. It ain’t nothing new to me. It don’t matter who’s having the best night. It don’t matter who’s having an off night. As long as we’re winning, that’s all that matters.”
Oregon pushed its lead to 14 points with 16:37 left, but Stanford scored eight in a row and used a 14-3 run to work back within a possession.
That’s when Richardson, who had six assists and four rebounds, took over.
Oregon’s leading scorer converted a three-point play to give the Ducks a 51-42 lead with 7:03 left. After missing his first seven shots from three-point range, Richardson finally made one to bump the lead back to 10 points. Then Richardson, who made just 3 of 14 shot, closed out the win with four free throws.
“I thought he did a good job of staying with it,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “He didn’t hit a shot the first half and struggled to start the second half. When you got that much experience you got to keep playing. He didn’t shoot it well but he had six assists, no turnovers. You got to get involved in other ways and then he got a couple of big rebounds late. Then versus the press he went and got the ball and was strong with it. Although he didn’t shoot the ball well he did a lot of other things I thought pretty good.”
Maxime Raynaud and Michael O’Connell each had 11 points for the Cardinal (14-10, 7-10), who lost for the third third in four games.
Jacob Young scored nine points and Quincy Guerrier recorded all of his seven points and five of his six rebounds in the second half for Oregon, which won for the 10th time in 11 games.
“I thought N’Faly gave us a big lift tonight and was much more active,” Altman said. “I thought Franck (Kepnang) closed it pretty good there with some defense and rebounding. I thought Quincy had a good second half; thought he got a lot more active and got active on the boards. On a night we didn’t shoot it well really overall, I thought we had some good looks that we didn’t hit and I thought we did a good job. De’Vion had a good shooting game; didn’t like his turnovers, but he shot the ball well.”
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