The BulleTin • Sunday, March 28, 2021 B3
Elite
tive shots as Oregon State flip-
flopped between man-to-man
Continued from B1
and zone defenses.
All-America forward Cam-
The Beavers wound up shut-
eron Krutwig led Loyola with 14 ting out Loyola the last 5:48 to
points. Lucas Williamson and
take a 24-16 halftime lead, the
Braden Norris added 10 apiece,
lowest-scoring first half of the
though both of them missed
entire tournament. Krutwig
3-pointers in the
was 3 of 5 from the
It was the first
closing minutes
field; the rest of the
as Loyola tried to
were 1
meeting between Ramblers
mount a comeback.
of 18.
It was the first
You’d have
the teams since
meeting between
sworn the Beavers
Dec. 31, 1927,
the teams since
sported the nation’s
Dec. 31, 1927,
No. 1 scoring de-
when Loyola won fense,
when Loyola won
not the other
31-19 in Chicago way around.
31-19 in Chicago
— and Sister Jean
State built
— and Sister Jean on Oregon
Dolores Schmidt,
Warith Alatishe’s
the Ramblers’ be-
Dolores Schmidt, buzzer-beating
loved 101-year-old
bucket to end the
the Ramblers’
chaplain, was still a
first half by finally
schoolgirl.
some shots
beloved 101-year- getting
For most of Sat-
to go in the second.
old chaplain, was Thompson did
urday, it looked as
if 31 points would
of the dam-
still a schoolgirl. most
be plenty.
age, hitting an early
Oregon State
jumper, beating the
turned it over twice before get-
shot clock with another fadeaway
ting off a shot, went nearly 6½
jumper, then catching a Hail
minutes before making its first
Mary heave to beat a full-court
field goal and at one point was
press and give the Beavers a 37-
1 of 8 with four turnovers. Then 24 lead with 12 minutes to go.
the Ramblers, who failed to
Meanwhile, the Ramblers
take advantage of their defense,
were hitting everything but the
proceeded to miss 11 consecu-
bottom of the bucket.
Football
Continued from B1
Despite the lead, the game still came down to
the final play. Summit marched down the field
and got in the red zone with less than 10 sec-
ond on the clock. But senior defensive back Jake
Hatch picked off sophomore quarterback Hogan
Charmichael in the end zone to seal the victory
for the Cougars.
“What I love about this group is they believe,”
said Crum. “They trust in the coaches and trust
in their teammates. When we needed to make a
play, they were able to make plays.”
While one side of Bend celebrated a come-
from-behind victory, the other side walked off
letting the school’s first win over Mountain View
since 2016 slip through its fingers.
The Storm went into the second matchup
confident, knowing that the first meeting was
kept finding answers. Lucas
provided one with a 3, Alatishe
provided another from the foul
line, and that was enough to
keep the Pac-12’s dream tourna-
ment going into the Elite Eight.
Oregon State guard Ethan Thompson (5) drives to the basket ahead of Loyola Chicago guard Marquise Ken-
nedy (12) during the second half of a Sweet 16 game in the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament at
Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on Saturday.
Big picture
Oregon State is making
the most of its second NCAA
Tournament appearance since
1990. The Beavers had beaten
higher-seeded teams in Ten-
nessee and Oklahoma State
to reach the second weekend,
then ramped up the defense
against one of the nation’s best
on that end of the court to keep
their run going.
Loyola Chicago was try-
ing to become the first No. 8
seed since Kentucky in 2014
to reach the Elite Eight. But its
slow start from the field proved
to be too much to overcome.
The Ramblers’ last lead came
with about six minutes left in
the first half.
Williamson rimmed out
3-pointers on back-to-back
trips down the floor. Tate Hall
clanked a couple of free throws
when that’s about the only place
they were scoring. Krutwig even
had a baby hook go halfway
down and right back out.
Up next
The Beavers play the Cou-
gars or the Orange for a spot
in the Final Four. Oregon State
has never played Syracuse, but it
beat Houston in the 1966 West
Region semifinal and again in
the 2009 CBI Tournament.
Jeff Roberson/AP
not indicative of the 33-3 final score. They
also thought that after holding Beaverton to
23 yards on 23 carriers in last week’s win, they
were prepared to slow down the Cougars’ rush-
ing attack.
“We realized after the first game that we could
play with them,” said Summit coach Corben Hy-
att. “We shot ourselves in the foot with mental
mistakes in the first game, we knew our defense
would come out and respond.”
But the Storm offense was never able to
threaten with a touchdown. Before the game’s
final drive, the offense never reached the red
zone. Instead, the offense was only able to get
a 40-yard field in the third quarter from junior
kicker Soren McKee. He would get another try,
also from 40-yards, in the fourth quarter, miss-
ing.
“I told our guys after the game there was
nothing to hang your head about,” said Hyatt.
Even when the shots
wouldn’t fall, Loyola contin-
ued to play defense, and that
kept the game close. And when
Braden Norris knocked down
a 3 and Aher Uguak tipped in
an ally-oop with 2:43 to go, the
Ramblers had trimmed their
deficit to 49-44 and had the
partisan crowd sitting mostly
in the rafters of Bankers Life
Fieldhouse cheering.
Kennedy hit a 3-pointer to
get the Ramblers within 51-
47, then another shot to get
within 53-49, but the Beavers
“They came out and played a great game. Moun-
tain View is a good opponent, I’m pleased with
how the guys fought and competed.”
Summit plays its second round against Bend
High next Friday, while Mountain View travels
to face Ridgeview.
But after a brawl between two of Bend’s high
schools, they might need some time to recover.
“Our kids were physically and emotionally
spent after this one,” said Crum. “And I know
(Summit’s) were too.”
Additional Central Oregon games
Redmond 28, Pendleton 0 — For the third
time this season, the Redmond defense held the
opposing offense off the scoreboard with 28-0
shutout of Pendleton. Junior quarterback Hayden
Parrish tossed pair of touchdowns to sophomore
wide out Nathan Wachs and a third to senior
Kole Davis. Senior Austin Carter ran for a touch-
down and picked off two passes on defense.
Ridgeview 46, Hood River Valley 26 — Se-
nior running back Josh Biever ran for 209 yards
and scored two touchdowns while sophomore
quarterback Aidan Brenneman tossed four
touchdown passes to help the Ravens back into
the win column on the road against Hood River
Valley.
Siuslaw 36, Sisters 19 — On the coast, the
Outlaws got touchdowns from Hayden Sharp,
Wyatt Maffey but it was not enough to take
down the Vikings.
Crook County 28, Madras 6 — The Cowboys
scored 28 unanswered points to beat the While
Buffalos Friday night in Prineville. Senior quar-
terback Hogan Smith ran for a pair of touch-
downs for the Cowboys. While senior running
back Trevyn Smith had a touchdown catch and
an interception on defense.
e e
Reporter: 541-383-0307, brathbone@bendbulletin.com
“If we break teams down, we
usually like to go inside first, but if
our shots are being knocked down,
take them. That’s how selfless our
team is, it’s that every single night
a different player might have an
amazing night. We lift each other
up and we love each other.”
Identity
Continued from B1
Graves continued: “We tried that
and quite frankly our offense sput-
tered, we were more efficient with a
smaller 4 spreading people out. We
finished that way but the last couple
of weeks we’ve been without a ton of
guards and by necessity we want back
to the bigs. We made a concerted ef-
fort in that two-week period to ham-
mer home getting the basketball in-
side and how to play with these two
together and it’s showing up well right
now.”
To Graves’ point, it wasn’t as though
Oregon didn’t attempt a version of
this earlier in the season, it just didn’t
work as well at the time. Also, Prince
was limited due to an ankle injury,
then Taylor Chavez was in and out of
the lineup, as was Scherr. Jaz Shelley
has been missing in the NCAA Tour-
nament and Te-Hina Paopao is out
indefinitely.
Even when most of those players
were available and Oregon played
Prince, Sabally and Angela Dugalic
together in spurts, there were mixed
results.
Yet it’s a simple approach, and fa-
vorable draw, that’s led the Ducks
back to this point. Playing to the
strengths of the posts and letting Bo-
ley, an elite shooter, get back to play-
ing on the outside has proven more
effective.
“It’s like my golf game, as soon as
you think you’ve figured it out you’re
Rematch
Continued from B1
“They kicked us,” Oregon
coach Dana Altman said. “We
got off to a terrible start and they
hit a bunch of threes and we
got down took some quick, bad
shots. Rallied a little bit in the
second half and got it down to a
manageable number but weren’t
able to make the plays necessary
to get back in the game. …
“I think anybody as a com-
petitor when you’re not suc-
cessful you want another op-
portunity. So yeah, we didn’t
play well, we got beat and if
you’re a competitor you want
an opportunity to come back
and show what you’re capable
of doing. I’d be really disap-
pointed if the guys didn’t feel
that way because I know our
coaching staff is looking for-
ward to the opportunity.”
USC’s Isaiah Mobley, who
didn’t play against UO last
— Sedona Prince, Oregon forward
Mark Sobhani/NCAA Photos
Oregon’s Sedona Prince (32) celebrates with her teammates after the Ducks defeated Georgia in the second round of the women’s
NCAA Tournament on Wednesday at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
in the woods for the rest of the day,”
Graves said. “I like what we’ve got
going on right now. We’ve been able
to utilize Erin in that 3 spot and get
her some looks, which is great. Then
month, said Oregon “stole” the
Pac-12 championship from
the Trojans and Andy Enfield
repeatedly raised his displea-
sure with the Ducks not having
to play at UCLA as originally
scheduled.
Much as he’s looking for-
ward to another meeting with
USC, Omoruyi didn’t want to
address the remarks from Isa-
iah Mobley.
“We’re not going to get into
the back and forth talking with
them,” Omoruyi said. “We
know we got to go out there
and compete and come out
with the victory.”
Enfield was more comple-
mentary of Oregon on Thurs-
day and isn’t expecting much
of the first meeting to apply to
Sunday.
“Even though they didn’t play
their full schedule, they had a
great season,” USC’s coach said.
“We have a lot of respect for Or-
egon; they’re a terrific basket-
most important we’re playing through
those two bigs so we’re playing in-
side-out and it has reaped some re-
wards for us.”
A matchup with No. 2 seed Louis-
ville in the Sweet 16 on Sunday is an-
other big test and yet another under-
sized opponent. All-American point
guard Dana Evans will be a challenge
to contain but the Cardinals don’t
Joe Robbins/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
Iowa’s Kris Murray (20) defends Oregon’s Eugene Omoruyi (2) in the
second round of the NCAA Tournament on Monday at Bankers Life
Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
ball team and they are as good
as – to us, they’re a top 10 team
in the country. I don’t think this
game has any more significance
because of the Pac-12 schedule.
We think this is a terrific team
we’re playing and we have to
play our best to have a chance
to win.
“This will be a completely
different game. It’s on a much
bigger stage and I think both
teams are playing good basket-
ball right now. I said before it’s
have an obvious way to counter Ore-
gon’s bigs, though UL does defend the
three well.
“The thing we always talk about is
we have so many strengths, whether
it’s inside with me, Nyara and Lydia
(Giomi) or outside with T-Mike, Erin,
Sydney (Parrish), all these amazing
shooters we have around us,” Prince
said. “If we break teams down, we
usually like to go inside first, but if our
shots are being knocked down, take
them. That’s how selfless our team is,
it’s that every single night a different
player might have an amazing night.
We lift each other up and we love each
other.
“We try to focus on, if we have
an advantage inside, then we’re go-
ing to take advantage of it. If we’re
shooting really well, then we’re
going to do that. We have a lot of
weapons and we’re going to con-
tinue to use them.”
a little unfortunate that we play
a league opponent, it happens
to be Oregon.”
Both teams are playing sig-
nificantly better and differently
than a month ago.
Will Richardson has re-
turned to form in March both
as Oregon’s facilitator at point
guard and as an offensive threat,
shooting 61.5% from three the
last six games. Omoruyi, LJ
Figueroa and Chris Duarte all
have been on a tear the last four
weeks as well.
Isaiah Mobley returned for
USC and has played well and
Evan Mobley has increased his
production to 18.4 points, 10.6
rebounds and 3.8 blocks per
game over the last five games.
“I feel like we can definitely
play a great game against them
because we already played
them before,” Evan Mobley
said. “That’s the great thing
about playing them in March
Madness, they’re in our con-
ference so we know a lot about
them compared to other teams
we don’t necessarily know too
much about, which is differ-
ent. It’s good that we get to play
them and compete and hope-
fully get the win.”
Altman always harps on
defense and rebounding and
USC’s size puts Oregon at a
disadvantage.
The Ducks know they can’t
get down early to the Trojans
again.
“We know we got to start the
game off right, start the game
off at our pace and come out
there and compete,” Omoruyi
said. “We can’t let them get
going early and take over the
game like they did last time.
We know we have to lock in
more and we have to come
out there and be focused on
the court, especially on the big
stage like this with a game that
means so much, that really de-
cides our season.”