The Oregon Ducks Mens basketball was in Champaign Tuesday night to take on #11 Illinois
The team had been playing better as of late going 3-2 in their last 5 games and one of those two loses being a heart breaker to Northwestern on the weekend.
Barring the Dana March run to end all Dana March runs this team won’t even sniff the NCAA tournament or the NIT but they had been putting up a good fight as of late. The Ducks are in true spoiler mode right now with all they have to play for being their pride
and the opportunity to sink their rivals tournament resumes. An upset over Illinois in Champaign could knock the Illini down an entire seed line but on Tuesday no such threat ever came close to transpiring.
Very early it was looking like we would at least get a competitve game thanks to this Bittle 3 to put the Ducks up 9-3 early.
But then the Ducks went ice cold on offence, attempting multiple 3’s and hitting none of them. Meanwhile Illinois could do whatever they wanted on offence. The result, a 16-0 Illinois run that gave the Illini a 19-9 lead. From there Illinois didn’t look back. They would continue their strong play and take a 41-21 lead into the 2nd half effectively ending this game after 20 minutes.
Oregon would get the lead back down to 11 in the 2nd half but that’s as close as they would get. Illinois would finish the game strong and take home an 80-54 victory over the Ducks.
This Basketball regular season will come to an end Saturday night when Oregon hosts Washington on senior night. Washington is also nowhere near the NCAA tournament so Saturday it’s regional pride and bragging rights on the line. Hopefully the Ducks can end the season on a strong note against the Huskies.
