UCLA Men’s Basketball Beats Oregon, Solidifies 1st Place in Pac-12

Playing in an arena where they hadn't won since 2019, going against a team that had given them fits for years, the Bruins surged ahead for a statement win Saturday night.

No. 7 UCLA men's basketball (21-4, 12-2 Pac-12) went up to Eugene and took down Oregon (15-11, 9-6) by a score of 70-63, and it wasn't even as close as that final scoreline suggests. The Bruins, despite trailing at halftime, led by 18 points with four minutes to go, riding key runs of 13-0 and 8-0 to bury the Ducks.

Coupled with Arizona's loss to Stanford, UCLA now owns a 1.5-game lead for first place in the Pac-12 with six games left on the regular season slate. Saturday also marked the Bruins' first win at Matthew Knight Arena since coach Mick Cronin took over, giving him two wins in a row over the Ducks after starting his tenure 0-4 against them.

Guard/forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. led the way on the stat sheet, scoring 25 points to go along with his 12 rebounds, three assists, two steals and a block. Jaquez has now reached double-digit rebounds four games in a row, and seventh time in his last nine outings.

When UCLA trailed 37-34 with 17:38 left to go in the game, Jaquez scored a second-chance bucket to trim the gap down to one. Guard David Singleton knocked down a 3-pointer to give the Bruins the lead, and then Jaquez hit three jumpers in a row to help his team start to pull away.

Center Adem Bona flushed home a dunk to give UCLA a double-digit advantage, but Oregon finally ended its five-minute scoreless streak with a couple buckets in the paint.

Jaquez was having none of that, though, answering each Duck field goal with a 3-pointer. Since the start of the new year, Jaquez has hit a triple in every game, and he is shooting 42.1% from deep on 3.5 attempts a night across those 11 contests.

After Jaquez halted Oregon's response with those 3-pointers, he hit a couple of free throws. That made it a 19-4 run for UCLA, and Jaquez accounted for 14 of his team's points during that decisive stretch.

The Ducks got the gap back down to nine a few minutes later, only for guard Jaylen Clark to ice them out with an and-1, a 3-pointer and three free throws. Clark got up to 13 points for the night thanks to that run, but it was Jaquez who got the steal and score to stretch the lead to 18.

While Oregon attempted to stage a late comeback by going on a 9-0 run in a less than two-minute stretch, it was too little, far too late.

Even with that garbage time shift, UCLA won the second half by 10 points – quite the departure from their recent road collapses against Arizona and USC.

For the 19th time in their last 20 games, the Bruins' defense held their opponent to under 67 points. The Ducks' star player and leading scorer, guard Will Richardson, scored a mere five points on 2-for-8 shooting.

UCLA was able to somewhat contain Oregon's 7-foot trio of N'Faly Dante, Nate Bittle and Kel'el Ware, limiting them to 21 points and 17 rebounds. None of them had a positive plus-minus for the game.

The Bruins were able to counter the Ducks' bigs despite its own post players being in constant foul trouble, as starter Adem Bona had two fouls at the 11:19 mark of the first half and backup Kenneth Nwuba got whistled for his third 28 seconds later.

Mac Etienne didn't score a single point – or even attempt a shot – but he was able to give coach Mick Cronin some key minutes before and after Bona and Nwuba eventually fouled out. The 14 minutes Etienne played were his most since he played 15 in a season-opening blowout over Sacramento State, and it was the most of UCLA's three bigs.

Jaquez and point guard Tyger Campbell, meanwhile, played 39 minutes each, never seeing the bench in the second half. The Bruins didn't hit a single field goal when Campbell wasn't on the floor, and he finished the game with four assists to no turnovers.

The Ducks turned the ball over 16 times to the Bruins' eight, and the blue and gold won the points off turnovers battle 19-7 in the seven-point victory.

UCLA will try to make it a five-game winning streak when it takes on Stanford at Pauley Pavilion on Thursday. That game will tip off at 8 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN2.

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