Oregon falls in final seconds in gut-wrenching loss to No. 16 USC

A magical win was there for the taking for Oregon Saturday night.

But the Ducks fell one basket short of their second resume-boosting victory in the last 48 hours, and now their postseason hopes remain in limbo.

Oregon fell 70-69 to No. 16 USC at Matthew Knight Arena Saturday. After Trojans’ guard Drew Peterson knocked down the go-ahead three-pointer with 11.5 seconds to go, the Ducks had one final shot to give the crowd of 10,021 a moment to remember.

But Jacob Young was swarmed by three Trojan defenders and threw a desperation pass to Will Richardson, who could not get his final shot to go. The clock struck zero. Young collapsed to the ground and covered his face in despair, and USC’s players flocked to mid-court to stomp on the Oregon “O” in retaliation to UO’s student section, which made its presence felt toward to Trojans’ players all evening.

“I thought Jacob had a pretty good crease on the initial one,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said of the final posession. “Then we were trying to get (Eric Williams Jr.) on the backside on that last play there. They switched the screen, so Jacob was the second option, getting it and driving it to the middle and trying to get to the rim.

“He made the right decision — everybody came and he kicked it back to WIll. We just didn’t hit the shot.”

This story is becoming all-too-familiar for the Ducks. Saturday marked the fourth game this season they have lost by three points or fewer.

It’s the second time in the past week that Richardson has had a chance to alter the outcome of a game on the final possession. Last Saturday at Arizona, he had the ball in his hands with the Ducks trailing 84-81 and failed to get a shot off before the buzzer sounded.

Richardson, Oregon’s leading scorer, finished the night with two points and eight assists and was 0-for-8 from the field.

“I thought he got some good looks,” Altman said. “He was 0-for-4 from three, and I think three of them are pretty good looks. So, just one of those nights he didn’t shoot it very well. Our guards, we’ve kind of depended on them all year to be scoring threats. They didn’t shoot it well tonight.”

Quincy Guerrier led the Ducks with 15 points and 10 rebounds, and De’Vion Harmon had 13 points and four steals.

Oregon trailed by as many as 12 midway through the first half and looked like a team devoid of any offensive ideas. But just as it appeared USC was headed for an easy victory, Harmon sparked a run that changed the game for the Ducks.

Harmon drained a three-pointer to cut the Trojans’ lead to 31-22 with 4:39 to go in the half. Then, he grabbed a steal at midcourt, took a few dribbles the other way, and lobbed a sensational alley-oop to Williams Jr. who slammed it home with authority.

USC coach Andy Enfield took a timeout, but the Ducks kept rolling. They closed out the half on a 12-0 run and took a 32-31 lead into halftime.

But USC leaned on its stars after the break to help take control of the game. Peterson scored six points within the first 10 minutes of the second half, and Isaiah Mobley scored eight over that same span.

Mobley, one of the top big men in the conference, finished with 17 points and nine rebounds while navigating around some early foul trouble. Peterson led all scorers with 20 points.

The Trojans extended their lead as far as six points early in the second half, but Oregon matched them shot-for-shot and refused to let them separate.

The two teams traded leads 12 times in the second half, and it seemed as though Oregon had finally captured control of the game for good when Guerrier canned a deep three with 25 seconds to go to give the Ducks a 69-67 lead.

But Peterson cooly came out of a timeout and walked into a pull-up three that gave the game its final score.

The Ducks will now set their sights on a pivotal road series with the Washington schools to close out the regular season. They are set to face Washington in Seattle at 7 p.m. Thursday, and then Washington State in Pullman at 1 p.m. Saturday.