Las Vegas, NV – When the odds have been stacked against you only have two choices, go with them or break them. The Oregon Ducks did just that by rattling off 8 wins in a row.
This 8th victory defeating No 1 seed Washington Huskies 68-48 to win the PAC-12 Championship and the automatic bid to NCAA’s Tournament.
March Madness has already began well before selection Sunday for the Ducks and many other teams playing in their perspective conference tournaments for automatic bids.
The Ducks were lead by guard Payton Pritchard who dropped 20 points, 7 assist and 6 rebounds.
“Everybody doubt us,” said Pritchard, “we just prepared like coach said and didn’t talk about the tournament.”
Washington went step for step with the Ducks in the first half only trailing by two points
28-26. Both teams needed to make some halftime adjustments to win.
The Ducks took charge of the second half by jumping out to a 11 point lead 39 – 28 12:00 2nd half.
Ducks coach Dana Altman let Pritchard loose to led them down the stretch again. The last four games his offense output was 7 points first round, 20 points quarterfinals, 18 points semifinals and 20 points championship game.
The look of defeat set in on the Ducks bench when the lead jumped to 20 with under 2:00 minutes to play in the game.
Washington began to press full court to disrupt Oregon offense but it was too little too late.
Coach Altman began to open up the bench at that point to reward his guys for a hard fought win.
As clocked ran down the Ducks began to celebrate more and more knowing what waited in the balance an automatic berth in NCAA March Madness bracket.
“Now we get to play again,” said Altman, “It’s all about the match ups….we can be a tough out.”