With less than 5 seconds to go, Will Richardson found himself in a familiar situation.
In Tucson, Ariz., last weekend, the fourth-year Duck had a chance to send the game to overtime but failed to get a shot up. On Saturday, he got a look at a potential game-winner vs. No. 16- USC but failed to connect.
There’s a lot of pressure to win on Senior Night. Even more so when your team is looking from the outside in on a potential eighth NCAA tournament appearance in the last decade.
Three Oregon seniors were celebrated afterward, as Richardson, Eric Williams and Jacob Young all left the court for what could be their last game in Matthew Knight Arena, and it wasn't the finish they wanted.
USC was playing catch-up in the final 3 minutes, but Drew Peterson hit a dagger go-ahead 3-pointer with 11.5 seconds left before Richardson's final miss on the other end, securing a 70-69 victory for the Trojans and dealing another blow to the Ducks' March Madness hopes.
The night did not go as expected for the Oregon upperclassmen, in general.
Richardson, who had scored 28 points in the Ducks win at USC last month, left to the locker room on two separate occasions in the first half Saturday night, eventually returning with a bandage over his eye and eventually finished with just 2 points while going 0 of 8 from the field.
“Will missed some good looks,” coach Dana Altman said. “Just one of those nights he didn't shoot it that well.”
The other two seniors escaped the first half without any injuries, but only had a combined nine points to show for it after 20 minutes of action. Young finished with 11 points and Williams with 10 on a night when the Ducks (18-11, 11-7 Pac-12) needed just a little more.
Peterson’s dagger capped off a 20-point performance while the team’s star, Isaiah Mobley contributed 17 with nine rebounds for USC (25-4, 14-4), doing all of his scoring in the second half after being limited by early foul trouble.
The Trojans held onto an 11-point lead in the first after shutting down open all open looks. Then Oregon closed out the half with 13 straight points to go into halftime up 32-31.
Despite shooting 39% from the field, the Ducks picked up their own defensive effort while capitalizing on their first-half rebounding and free throw advantage.
Young leaped to meet the much taller Kobe Johnson at the rim, sending his shot back and eliminating the Trojan's effort to re-take the halftime lead.
Poor shooting for both teams kept it a close contest the rest of the way. Much like the game on Thursday night, there were no star performances for the Ducks. Quincy Guerrier was the leading scorer with 15 while a total of five players ended in double-digit scoring.
The things that Oregon did well during the first half began to fall apart as more time went by. USC re-took control of the rebound battle (41-37 in the end) with many easy putbacks off missed attempts.
“They went small on us,” Altman said. “We were just having trouble matching up — [N'Faly] Dante and Franck [Kepnang] had a little trouble guarding Mobley.”
The Trojans are accustomed to these dogfight types of games. Three of the wins on their six-game win streak were decided by one possession. When the game got to the final stages, they were not fazed.
Though the injury wasn’t enough to sideline Richardson, it surely affected his game. He failed to record a basket but added eight assists.
Despite highly-efficient performances from Kepnang (2-for-2 for 4 points and 4 rebounds in just 7 minutes) and Dante (12 points and 9 rebounds on 4-of-6 shooting), Oregon chose a small-ball lineup to close out the game. The duo did not touch the court for the remaining 8 minutes.
Down one, Richardson drove to the hole drawing two defenders before kicking it out to Guerrier for 3 and a 69-67 lead with 22 second to go. Then Peterson answered with one from his own silencing the crowd while potentially eliminating Oregon’s tournament aspirations.
On Oregon's final possession, Mobley got a block on Young but the ball went out of bounds as possession stayed with the hosts. The Ducks called timeout with 6 seconds left, USC subbed in 6-foot-11 forward Joshua Morgan and after Oregon not so cleanly got the ball inside to Richardson, it was Morgan who successfully contested the shot by going straight up to avoid any potential foul as the final shot landed off the mark.
The Ducks' final stop of the regular season sees them in Washington for a pair of games before the flight to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 tournament. It may now take a championship run in the conference tournament to save Oregon a spot in the NCAA tourney field as its leeway for losses has finally run out.
