No. 13 Oregon claims Pac-12 with 80-67 win over Stanford

EUGENE, Ore. -- The opportunity was there, and Oregon wasn’t about to let it pass.

With a share of the Pac-12 regular season championship assured before the game, the No. 13 Ducks claimed it outright for themselves by finishing perfect at home with an 80-67 victory Saturday over Stanford.

“I told them nine times out of 10, being selfish is a bad thing,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said of his pregame speech. “This one time, it’s a good thing.

“We don’t need to share this with anybody.”

Tthe Ducks didn’t, finishing a game ahead of UCLA as Payton Pritchard scored 29 points for Oregon (24-7, 13-5). Fellow senior Anthony Mathis added 14 points as the Ducks (24-7, 13-5) finished 17-0 at home.

Oregon clinched a share of the title earlier in the day when UCLA lost to USC and fell to 12-6.

Will Richardson added 12 points for Oregon, which shot 57% from the field. Oregon also made 10 of 19 3-pointers, including four each by Pritchard and Mathis.

Oscar Da Silva led the Cardinal (20-11, 9-9) with 18 points and Spencer Jones added 15. Daejon Davis had 13 points and Bryce Willis 10 for Stanford, which defeated Oregon 70-60 a month ago.

“It’s great to win it outright but we wanted to get redemption against Stanford,” Pritchard said. “We wanted to prove a point.”

It is Oregon’s seventh conference title, dating back to 1919, with three in the past five years. The Ducks hadn’t won a conference title at home since 1945.

Oregon scored the first four points of the second half to lead 40-31. Pritchard's long 3-pointer made it 50-40 before the Ducks scored seven consecutive points, the last five by Addison Patterson, for their biggest lead at 57-42.

Stanford answered with seven straight points to get within 57-49. Pritchard hit a 3-pointer and then drove for a layup to increase the lead to 62-49 with 6:38 remaining.

Stanford twice again got within seven points of the Ducks. Pritchard usually answered with a 3, a drive or free throws as he closed his four-year career in front of the Oregon fans.

“The key is to make it tough on Pritchard but he’ll probably be the player of the year in the conference,” Stanford coach Jerod Haase said. “He’s an unbelievable player and everything kind of goes through him.

“You can do all you want and we have some great individual defensive players, but at the end of the day, it all starts and ends with him.”

BIG PICTURE

Stanford: The Cardinal is 3-20 against Top-25 teams over the past four seasons, with wins this season over Colorado and Oregon. Stanford’s last road win over a ranked Pac-12 foe was against Oregon in 2014.

Oregon: Became the first Pac-12 school to win conference titles in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball in the same academic year. The only other Power Five conference school to accomplish that was Ohio State, three times.

UP NEXT

Stanford: Plays California on Wednesday in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament.

Oregon: Plays the Oregon State-Utah winner in Thursday's Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals.