MBB Recap: Oregon vs San Diego State

The Oregon Ducks took on the San Diego State Aztecs on Tuesday night as part of the Player’s Era Championship, looking to bounce back after being handed their first loss of the season by the Auburn Tigers on Monday night. This one started off well for the Ducks with Jackson Shelstad nailing his first four shots from deep, and both sides tied at 15 with about twelve minutes to play in the first half. But, that’s where the night started to go sideways for Oregon. The Aztecs would go on a quick 12-0 run, giving them a 27-15 lead, and would never trail again for the rest of the night. Oregon would cut the lead down to 6 at one point in the second half, but it was just SDSU’s night on both ends of the floor, and they would wind up winning the game 97-80.

As I mentioned, it was just the Aztecs’ night on Tuesday. It really felt like nothing the Ducks defense could throw at them made any real difference; everything was falling. On the Oregon side of things, it isn’t like they shot particularly poorly (40.3% from the floor, 42.9% from three) their defense just couldn’t do anything to stop SDSU for whatever reason (67.2 % from the floor, 47.8% from three). The Ducks had significantly less turnovers than they did against Auburn (18 against Auburn, just 11 against SDSU), and even had less than the Aztecs (15 turnovers). It just didn’t seem to matter. Shelstad played well, scoring 21 points on 7-13 from the floor, Nate Bittle was efficient as well, going 5-8 for 13 points. But the SDSU defense made the Ducks work for everything and racked up 6 blocks and 7 steals in the process.

I don’t know what else to say, y’all. The Aztecs just couldn’t miss. And it’s very, very hard to beat a team when they shoot almost 70% from the floor. This was a tough one to watch, but it’s only November. There’s a whole lot more basketball to be played.