Oregon Ducks Joseph Young Hits Milestone in Win over Pesky USC Trojans

Last season the Oregon Ducks were 6-3 at home at Matthew Knight Arena. In protecting their home court they made it into the NCAA Tournament to face Wisconsin. This season home court is again important and with just six home games remaining on the schedule so are wins. It started again with the USC Trojans on Thursday night following a two game losing streak in Washington.

Elgin Cook would get the night started with a two point layin and Jordan Bell would defend with a block on the other end. The Oregon Ducks needed a fast start and it continued with a three pointer from Joseph Young who entering the night needed just seven points to reach one-thousand for his career. Oregon would jump out to a 7-0 start.

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Oregon would start the game six of seven from the floor building a 16-2 lead on USC. The Trojans would call two timeouts in the first four minutes of the game. USC would not let the game get too far away and pull within six at the 12:27 mark. Elgin Cook would pick up a technical foul for hanging on the rim.

Just before the end of the first half Joseph Young became the fourth Oregon Ducks player to score one-thousand career points in a two year period in Eugene to a standing ovation from the crowd on hand. USC would continue to rally against Oregon and a Ducks turnover with just over a minute remaining would pull the Trojans within nine, but a three point shot from Jalil Abdul-Bassitt on the other end would extend the Ducks lead to 42-31.

Oregon had seven turnovers in the first half and led in rebounds 23 to 14 over USC. Joseph Young led all scorers with thirteen points.

In the second half the Oregon Ducks would use foul shots to pull away from USC, but Nikola Jovanovic and Katin Reinhart would keep USC in the game at 52-47 with fourteen minutes left in the game. Dwayne Benjamin would again extend the separation with a three point shot. Reinhart would land a three before Joseph Young put the Ducks lead at six. The Trojans again would pick up a quick six points and the Oregon lead would be cut to three.

"We definitely have a lot of room for improvement, I feel we could have beaten this team by a lot more.Jalil Abdul-Bassit on the Win over the Trojans"

At halftime the thought was the Oregon should take care of this team in the second half as they were starting to pull away only to let USC back into the game. The Trojans had several opportunities to take the lead on Oregon. The Ducks were able to stay one play ahead until Julian Jacobs hit a two point shot and was fouled. His one foul shot tied the game for the first time at 61.

Elgin Cook hit two fouls shots and Dillon Brooks a two point jump shot with just over two minutes to go to give Oregon a five point lead. Joseph Young would hit two foul shots extending the lead to seven. In the end Oregon was able to pull away for the win against the USC Trojans.

Oregon will now turn their attention to UCLA, who lost on Thursday night in Corvallis to Oregon State. The Bruins visit Matthew Knight Arena in a Nationally Televised game on CBS on Saturday at 1pm Pacific Time.

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