Ducks drop Senior Day game to Stanford

Stanford's Josh Huestis, left, battles Oregon's E.J. Singler for a rebound during the second half of Saturday's game.

(AP Photo/Chris Pietsch)

Oregon players wore gray for Saturday’s Senior Day and Joevan Catron asked the sellout crowd to wear white, but black would have been the most appropriate color as the Ducks were outshot, outrebounded and outplayed for the second game in a row, losing to Stanford, 88 - 71.

Oregon (14-14, 7-9) started its last regular season game in Matthew Knight Arena hot, shooting 7 – 11 early but faded just as quickly, letting Stanford (14-14, 7-10) pull even at 18 halfway through the first and take a 43 – 34 halftime lead. Stanford’s Josh Owens scored a career-high 31 points on 12 – 15 shooting as the Cardinal oushot the Ducks 59 to 37 percent.

Down nine starting the second, Stanford scored the first six points of the half and never led by less than 13 after that.

The Cardinal was able to keep senior Catron bottled up, holding the team leader to eight points and two rebounds in just 25 minutes after he picked up two early fouls.

“We’re just a different team when he’s in there,” Oregon Head Coach Dana Altman said. “Tonight we weren’t able to do much inside, they beat him around pretty good in there.“

Stanford took advantage of Catron’s absence and outrebounded the Ducks 36 – 21 while adding 12 more points in the paint.

Stanford’s 88 points marks the second straight game Oregon allowed a team to break 80 and fourth in conference play.

“Offensively, the last two games we scored enough points. Our problems tonight were more defensive,” Altman said.

One bright spot was UO guard Malcolm Armstead, who started in front of Jonathan Loyd because of a scorebook error, and led the Ducks with a season-high 22 points.

The Ducks close out their regular season on the road against Arizona State and Arizona next week before heading to the Pac-10 tournament March 9.

Saturday’s loss drops the Ducks to seventh in the Pac-10. The top six teams in the conference tournament get a first round bye.