Oregon men's basketball rallies to win another nailbiter against rival Oregon State

Oregon men’s basketball rallies to win another nailbiter against rival Oregon State

Posted by Admin November 22, 2024 Basketball

CORVALLIS – The conference logos are different now, but the Oregon-Oregon State men’s basketball rivalry lives on.

At least inside Gill Coliseum.

For the fourth straight season, the Ducks eked out a one-possession victory against the Beavers in Corvallis and extended their overall winning streak against Oregon State to eight games.

It took a late rally from a double-digit deficit to do so, but Oregon won 78-75 on Thursday, with center Nate Bittle shushing the crowd of 6,617 as he walked off the court following what was a career performance for the Ducks’ big man.

“Rivals, you know?” Bittle said with a smile after the game. “It’s just the atmosphere, the crowd gets into it … and it was just a tough-fought win. It’s always good to come over here and win.”

Bittle finished with 23 points and 14 rebounds – both career highs for the fourth-year player from Central Point.

He had 17 points and 11 rebounds in the second half to help spark the comeback.

Oregon (5-0) trailed 47-37 at the break following a poorly played first half and was down 61-49 with 11:27 to go in the game.

Then Bittle started getting hot inside and Jackson Shelstad found his stroke out on the perimeter. The point guard, who came into the night 3 for 16 from 3-point range on the season, made three 3-pointers down the stretch starting with a deep shot with 7:37 to play that cut the Ducks’ deficit to 66-64.

Bittle followed with a game-tying score inside and then Shelstad again came through with a corner 3 to put the Ducks up 69-66 with 5:25 on the clock and capping a 20-5 run over six minutes put Oregon in the lead for the first time.

Shelstad wasn’t done, as he made another 3-pointer at the 2:43 mark to put the Ducks up for good, 74-72.

He finished with 15 points and six assists. Both were season highs.

“I feel like every good shooter goes through some shooting slumps,” Shelstad said. “My teammates tell me to keep shooting, my coaches tell me to keep shooting and that gives me all the confidence to take good, open 3s. I got some good looks and I just let them go and they finally started falling.”

The Beavers had a chance to tie the score but a 3-point attempt by Michael Rataj was off the mark and Bittle grabbed his final rebound right before the buzzer sounded.

“Overall, it was just a good team win,” Bittle said. “I couldn’t be more proud of my guys to come back and fight like that.”

Bittle, after making just 3 of 7 shots in the first half, including misses on all three of his 3-point attempts, stayed in the paint in the second half as the 7-footer made 7 of 9 from the field.

“The second half we got that ball inside to Nate,” coach Dana Altman said. “He was aggressive and went to the glass and everything was nose to the goal. He played really well.”

The win continued the trend of one-possession victories at Gill Coliseum for the Ducks, who won 60-58 last season, 69-67 in 2023 and 78-76 in 2022.

Rataj had 20 points and 10 rebounds, and Liutauras Lelevicius had 13 points for the Beavers, who outrebounded Oregon 38-30 but also saw their field-goal percentage drop from 48.6% in the first half to 28% in the second half.

The Ducks, who also got 10 points from both Jadrian Tracey and Keeshawn Barthelemy, shot 49.2% for the game.

“We were down 12 points and we kind of had to come together and see what we were about at that moment, trust our coaches, trust our teammates,” Shelstad said. “That’s going to play a big part going through the season.”

Up next for Oregon

The Ducks will head to Las Vegas next week for the Players Era Festival at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

They’ll play Texas A&M (4-1) Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. and San Diego State (2-1) Wednesday at 1 p.m. Oregon will have two days off for Thanksgiving then it’ll play the final game of the tournament on Saturday, time and opponent to be determined.

Chris Hansen covers University of Oregon football, men’s basketball, track and field, cross country and softball for The Register-Guard. You can reach him at chansen@registerguard.com and you can follow him on X @chansen_RG.