Monday
Best Bet
College Basketball: Georgetown vs. Syracuse
4 p.m., ESPN
SPORTS EDITOR: JEFF SMITH Smittside@aol.com
, . Laura Smit Emerald
Oregon sophomore point guard Kourtney Shreve played a gutsy game against the Bruins as she led the team with 11 points, despite getting
knocked out with a mild concussion in the second half. Shreve and the Ducks are tied for first place in the Pacific-10 Conference.
U0 gets boost by beating UCLA
SCOTT PESZNECKER
The Oregon women’s basket
ball team beat UCLA 54-43 at
McArthur Court Saturday af
ternoon, blah blah blah blah
blah, [insert game highlight here].
Really, the details of how the Ore
gon women’s basketball team beat the
Bruins aren’t too important.
What matters most is simply that
the Ducks won.
They needed the victory, for the
sake of confidence, after losing two
straight games so early in the Pacific
10 Conference title chase.
“Losing two games in a row like that
and knowing we had to have a win...
it’s a fight to get back into our game,”
senior forward Brianne Meharry said.
Saturday’s game definitely wasn’t
pretty — Oregon shot less than 38 per
cent from the floor for its second
straight outing—but a win is a win.
The Ducks had a little more spring in
their steps than they did, say, two
nights prior after losing a heartbreaker
to Southern California.
“Our confidence has been shaken,
and rightfully so,” Meharry said. “All
athletes go through that, and we have
to fight through it. We have to take it
one step at a time.”
“It’s always good when we win,”
junior guard Jamie Craighead said. “I
don’t think we lost any confidence in
the USC loss. This team deals well
with adversity, and I think this win
showed that.”
But Oregon did look beaten after
losing to the Trojans.
Thursday’s postgame atmosphere
was capped when senior forward Lind
Turn to PezSez, page 8
Women brake
two-game skid
■ Senior Angelina Wolvert returns to the lineup
against UCLA, but Kourtney Shreve leaves with
a minor concussion in the Ducks’ victory
By Adam Jude
Oregon Daily Emerald
“Wooohooo!” said senior Brianne Meharry, after learn
ing that the Ducks had won the battle for the boards and
their first game in a week, a 54-43 drubbing of UCLA on
Saturday.
The No. 20 Ducks (12-5 overall, 5-2 Pacific-10 Confer
ence), averaging 32.5 rebounds per game, picked up 47
against the Bruins (compared to
UCLA’s 42) and ended a two-game los
ing skid in front of 5,346 fans at
McArthur Court.
“Let’s face it — we’re terrible re
bounders,” senior forward Angelina
Wolvert said. “But I think rebounding
was the difference in the second half.
We were able to push the fast breaks
and able to run a little more than usual.”
After consecutive losses to Washington State and USC,
Oregon head coach Jody Runge said Saturday’s contest
against UCLA (3-15, 2-5) was a “must win.”
“This was really a game where we had to put it back
together,” Runge said. “We have a tough road trip ahead
[in Arizona], and it will be a tremendous challenge from
where we’re at right now.”
With the victory, Oregon stayed tied with Arizona
State at the top spot in the Pac-10 standings.
After missing two games with a knee injury, Wolvert
came off the bench for the Ducks and tallied seven points
and three rebounds in 17 minutes.
“It feels good,” said Wolvert of the sprained ligament
in her left knee, which was injured Jan. 20 at Washing
ton. “It was interesting to finally go up and down the
court because I hadn’t gone on it full strength. ... I’ll be
fine, though.”
The bruised Ducks suffered another setback when
sophomore point guard Kourtney Shreve went down
with a minor concussion in the second half.
Despite the elbow to the head, Shreve led the Ducks
with 11 points and four steals.
Oregon led 24-19 at the half but took a 37-21 advan
tage, thanks to a 13-0 run that ended at the 15:35 mark of
the second period. Then, just two minutes later, the
Ducks ran up another 13-0 run to take a commanding 52
27 lead.
“We did a good job in the first half, and our team felt
like we should have been ahead,” UCLA head coach
Kathy Olivier said. “But in the second half, Oregon
stepped it up and poured it on while we were still in the
locker room for the first few minutes.”
A big key for the Ducks was shutting down Michelle
Greco, the Pac-lO’s leading scorer, who paced the Bru
ins with 17 points but shot just 6-for-29 from the field
and only 2-for-12 from three-point land. Overall, the
conference’s worst shooting team hit 22 percent from
Turn to Women’s, page 8
Bruins aggressively press Ducks into 17th defeat at UCLA
Oregon plays
tough against
UCLA but folds
in the end for
its fifth loss in
six games
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Before Saturday, the Oregon
men’s basketball team had lost 16
straight games at UCLA’s Pauley
Pavilion.
The Bruins’ stifling full-court
press made sure that streak went to
17, as UCLA (12-5 overall, 6-1 Pa
cific-10 Conference) handed the
Ducks (11-6, 2-5) their second
straight loss, 98-88, in Los Angeles.
“They wore us down,” Oregon
head coach Ernie Kent told KUGN
after the game.
The Ducks took a 48-42 lead into
halftime Saturday and appeared to
be in control, despite Bruin guard
Earl Watson’s two quick three
pointers to end the half. But
UCLA’s full-court press fatigued
Oregon in the second half, as the
Bruins outscored the Ducks 56-40
to notch the victory.
“The game turned aggressive in
the second half, and we didn’t han
dle it very well,” Kent said. “We
just ran out of gas.”
UCLA held on to second place
in the Pac-10 with the victory,
while Oregon will stay in the bot
tom third of the conference after
dropping both games on its South
ern California road trip.
Foul trouble and turnovers
plagued Oregon in the second half
of Saturday’s game. The Ducks
committed 16 turnovers in the sec
ond half, compared to seven in the
first frame. Defensively, three Ore
gon players — Luke Jackson, Chris
Christoffersen and Flo Hartenstein
— all fouled out of the game.
Christoffersen was the biggest
loss, as he left the court in the mid
dle of his best effort in an Oregon
uniform. The 7-foot-2 center netted
a career-best 15 points and seven re
bounds in 17 minutes of action and
played good defense against UCLA’s
big man Dan Gadzuric.
“We saw Chris come of age,”
Kent said. “That alone was worth
this trip down here.”
Bruin forward Matt Barnes car
ried the offensive load for UCLA,
scoring a career-high 26 points.
UCLA forward Jason Kapono
added 18 points despite an injured
shooting wrist.
Kapono’s biggest points came
with 11:22 on the clock in the sec
ond half, when UCLA broke the
game open. With the game tied,
Kapono hit two free throws to put
the Bruins in front 64-62.
Oregon’s Luke Ridnour then hit
a three to put the Ducks up by one
point, but Kapono answered with a
three-point play of his own when
he was fouled by Christoffersen on
alayin.
After a steal on the Ducks’ next
possession, Kapono nailed a trey
from the corner to put the Bruins
Turn to Men’s, page 6
CC We saw
Chris come
of age. That
along was
worth this
trip down
here.
Ernie Kent
Oregon head
coach yy