Oregon never trailed in its Pac-12 Tournament semifinal win over Arizona Friday night. In fact, the Ducks spent the bulk of the evening owning a comfortable advantage. Leading 77-70 with just 20 seconds to play, Dana Altman’s team appeared poised to cruise into the Pac-12 title game for the third time in the last four years.
Oregon beats Arizona in Pac-12 Tournament despite massive collapse in closing seconds
The Ducks tried to give it away in the game’s final seconds, but they’ll play for the tournament title on Saturday.
Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Then they lost their damn minds.
The sequence started with 6'9 Arizona forward Mark Tollefsen, who had made just two three-pointers in the Wildcats' last nine games, burying a triple to make the score 77-73. On the other end of the court, 70.2 percent free-throw shooter Chris Boucher missed a pair of attempts from the charity stripe. After a hectic sequence that included a Tyler Dorsey block, the ball wound up in the hands of Arizona sharpshooter Gabe York, who buried a trey to make it a one-point game with just 0.7 seconds left on the clock.
All Oregon has to do at this point is complete an easy pass or throw the ball down the court. A tipped ball ends the game, and even a clean catch by an Arizona player would take an answered miracle to make a difference.
None of those things happened.
Oregon led Arizona by 4 with less than 10 secs left, and then this happened. They have gone to OT pic.twitter.com/tufk4uMkns
— The Cauldron (@TheCauldron) March 12, 2016
Tollefsen misfired on his first free throw, but buried the second to send the game to an improbable overtime period.
Oregon managed to regain its composure in the extra frame, getting back-to-back three-pointers from Dwayne Benjamin and Dillon Brooks to give them a six-point lead they wouldn't relinquish. The Ducks will shoot for their fourth Pac-12 Tournament title on Saturday, a mark which would tie them with UCLA and put them just one behind Arizona for the most in the conference.
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