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Pac-12 Tournament Roundup: UCLA Loses; Oregon, USC, Colorado Win

Oregon State upsets Bruins in overtime; USC gets by Utah in two overtimes
Jake Curtis|
Pac-12 Tournament Roundup: UCLA Loses; Oregon, USC, Colorado Win
Pac-12 Tournament Roundup: UCLA Loses; Oregon, USC, Colorado Win

Regular-season Pac-12 champion Oregon continued its recent run of top-notch basketball in a 91-73 victory over eighth-seeded Arizona State in a Pac-12 tournament quarterfinal game in Las Vegas on Thursday. 

Oregon will next face Oregon State, which upset UCLA in overtime in another quarterfinal game. Later second-seeded USC beat Utah in double overtime and will face Colorado, which held off Cal. (See recaps of those three games below.)

The Ducks (20-5) won their sixth straight game and recorded their 11th win in their last 12 games. They also reached the 20-win mark for the 11th straight year. Getting there this season is a little more significant this season with the shortened schedule.

Oregon shot 59 percent from the field on Thursday, which is the third straight game that the Ducks shot better than 55 percent from the field. Oregon made 10 of 18 three-point shots.

LJ Figueroa finished with 21 points for Oregon and produced an impressive alley-oop dunk in the second half.

Will Richardson continued his recent scoring splurge. After scoring a season-high 22 points in Oregon's final regular-season game against Oregon State on Sunday, Richardson collected 17 points on Thursday, with 13 of them coming in the first half when the Ducks took control. He also had nine assists and seven rebounds.

All-conference guard Chris Duarte took just three shots and scored only six points, but it didn't matter.

Arizona State finished with an 11-14 record.  ASU guard Remy Martin, who entered the game as the Pac-12's leading scorer, did not score until 12 minutes remained in the second half. He finished with 16 points, but it was too late.

Alonzo Verge Jr. was the Sun Devils' leading scorer again with 28 points. ASU again played without its two prized but injured freshmen -- Josh Christopher and Marcus Bagley.

Oregon led by eight points at halftime, and led by just six points with 15:21 left in the game. But the Ducks went on a run from there and led by 18 points with 11:01 left.

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Oregon State 83, UCLA 79 (OT)

Fourth-seeded UCLA let a 16-point first-half lead get away in an overtime loss, and although everyone assumes the Bruins still have an NCAA tournament berth assured, a small amount of doubt remains.

The Bruins (17-9) end on a three-game losing streak, and their NET ranking of No. 42 entering the game will drop a bit.  As of Thursday morning, most sites that project a 68-team NCAA field had the Bruins comfortably in the NCAA tournament as a No. 10 seed. But a few had UCLA as a No. 11 seed, which would put the Bruins close to the bubble. And if there are upsets in other conference tournament, UCLA may be a bit nervous Sunday morning when the NCAA tournament selections are announced.

The star for Oregon State (14-12) was Warith Alatishe, who scored a career-high 22 points on 11-for-14 shooting and 10 rebounds. And his bucket with 11.1 seconds left in regulation put the Beavers ahead 70-69 and gave them their first lead since early in the first half.

UCLA's Jules Bernard, who finished with a team-high 19 points, then made one of two free throws with 3.0 seconds left as a result of a dubious rebounding foul called on Ethan Thompson. That forced overtime.

UCLA played the overtime period without starters Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Cody Riley, who were two of the five players (two for UCLA, three for Oregon State) who fouled out of game in which  48 fouls were called.

Rodrigue Andela made two free throws with 57 seconds left in the overtime to put the Beavers ahead by a point, but UCLA had a chance to take the lead with the clock ticking under 10 seconds with the Bruins on a fast break.  But Bernard threw the ball away, Oregon State's Jarod Lucas made two free throws with 3.0 seconds left, and the Beavers held on.

The fifth-seeded Beavers will face top-seeded Oregon in Friday night's semifinals.

A Warith Alatishe dunk

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USC 91, Utah 85 (2 OT)

Pac-12 player of the year Evan Mobley scored eight of his 26 points in the second overtime, as the Trojans avoided an upset against seventh-seeded Utah.

Mobley played only seven minutes in the first half and had just two points at halftime.  But he was the key figure for USC (22-6) after intermission. He also had eight  rebounds and five blocks.

The Trojans will face the winner of the Colorado-Cal game in Friday's semifinals.

Utah (12-13) trailed nearly the whole game, but Timmy Allen helped the Utes stay in contention by collecting 20 points and 13 rebounds.

USC had a chance to win it regulation time. The Trojans led by two points when USC's Ethan Anderson missed two free throws with 14 seconds left. Utah's Ian Martinez then sank two foul shots with 2.3 seconds remaining to tie the game.

The game went to a second overtime period when Utah's Alonso Plummer hit a three-pointer with 32 seconds left to tie the score, and USC's Tahj Eaddy failed to convert a shot after he drove the lane with two seconds remaining.

Mobley scored USC's first seven points of the second overtime to stake the Trojans to a four-point lead, and USC held on.

Utah and USC split their two regular-season meetings, and Mobley scored just three points in the Trojans' win and had just 11 in Utah's win.

Four Utah players fouled out in a game that featured 55 fouls.

Colorado 61, Cal 58

Cal’s season is over, but the 11th-seeded Golden Bears made it interesting.

Trailing by 13 points with 7:31 left and by nine points with 1:05 remaining, Cal got within three points at 61-58 with 40.6 seconds left on a Jalen Celestine three-pointer under pressure.

Colorado's McKinley Wright IV committed a turnover down with 11.5 seconds left, so Cal had a chance to tie with a three-pointer. Cal's Makale Foreman got a pretty good look on a long three-point shot with two seconds left but it did not go down.

Cal’s Matt Bradley, who scored 29 points when the Bears beat Colorado last month, was limited to 10 points on 3-for-11 shooting and did not score until 11:22 remained in the second half. He missed his first eight shots and fouled out with 3:28 left.

Colorado (21-7) won its fifth straight game and will face USC in Friday’s 8:30 p.m. semifinal game

Cal finished 9-20. Grant Anticevich led the Bears with 11 points. Evan Battey had 15 for the Buffaloes. McKinley Wright finished with 10 points but was 4-for-14 from the field.

Neither team shot well. Cal made 38.3 percent of its shots, and Colorado hit on 38.5 percent. Colorado, which entered the game on pace to set a single-season Division I record for free-throw percentage, hit 18 of 23 free-throws, while Cal was 15-of-20. 

 

Cover photo of Oregon State postgame celebration is by Stephen L. Sylvanie, USA TODAY Sports

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 Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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