Wilcox's 24 leads Washington past Oregon 76-60

SEATTLE (AP) ? Whether starting or coming off the bench, there's no doubting the shooting prowess of Washington's C.J. Wilcox.

Moved to a reserve role for the start of Pac-12 Conference play, Wilcox responded by matching his career-high with 24 points, and the Huskies improved to 2-0 to start the conference season with a 76-60 win over Oregon on Saturday night.

"I just know I have to come off and create a sort of spark for the team coming off the bench," Wilcox said. "I'm OK with it. It's good."

Wilcox was shuttled to the bench earlier this week as a way to get freshman Tony Wroten and 7-footer Aziz N'Diaye in the starting lineup together. Wilcox still came through with his highest point total since scoring 24 last season against UCLA, making 8 of 11 shots and 6 of 8 3-pointers ? matching his career-high in 3-pointers made.

Perhaps most important, Wilcox scored 13 during a key second-half run for Washington (8-5, 2-0 Pac-12) after the Ducks had trimmed a double-digit deficit down to four.

"If he starts, if he comes off the bench, if he plays with any combinations that we have, he's going to do the same thing," Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said of Wilcox.

In his first game coming off the bench this season on Thursday night, Wilcox played 30 minutes and finished with 15 points. He was even more dynamic on Saturday in 33 minutes, which is more than his average for the season.

Wroten added 17 points, five assists and four rebounds, while Abdul Gaddy added 12 points and Terrance Ross had 11, and Washington shot nearly 54 percent.

"It's like you pick your poison if everybody is shooting like that," Gaddy said. "But it's all about ball movement."

E.J. Singler led Oregon (10-4, 1-1) with 20 points, 13 coming in the first half. But the Ducks shot just 32 percent and leading scorer Devoe Joseph was 1 of 13 shooting and finished with just four points, 10 below his season average.

But the Ducks continued to hang around, closing within 48-44 in the second half before Wilcox nearly put together the Huskies' decisive run by himself.

Washington led 47-36 when a backcourt dustup between Wroten and Oregon's Olu Ashaolu resulted in double technicals for Ashaolu and Washington's Darnell Gant. The technical also proved to be the start of Oregon's final surge as the Ducks scored eight of the next nine points to pull within 48-44 after consecutive easy baskets for Singler.

Romar called timeout and after the teams exchanged turnovers, Wilcox connected on back-to-back 3-pointers to put the lead back to 54-46. Even after a timeout, the run continued with Wilcox scoring on a left-handed baseline drive and Ross hitting a crossover, step-back 3 to give the Huskies a 59-46 lead. Wilcox added another baseline basket and Gaddy capped the run with an open 3-pointer from the wing to give the Huskies their biggest lead to that point at 64-49 with 7:59 left.

Washington led by as many as 19 in the closing minutes.

Oregon was trying for a 2-0 conference start after knocking off Washington State on Thursday night. It didn't help that Joseph couldn't make anything. Joseph came in averaging 14.7 points for the Ducks, but his one basket came midway through the first half. It was a theme throughout the Oregon lineup as the Ducks got plenty of looks from the perimeter, but couldn't make Washington pay for slow defensive rotations. The Ducks were just 5 of 23 on 3-pointers after coming in as a 36 percent 3-point-shooting team. .

Ashaolu, who had 23 points and 10 rebounds against Washington State, was limited to six points and 12 rebounds. It got so bad for the Ducks that Carlos Emory couldn't convert a breakaway dunk attempt with 2 minutes left, losing his grip of the ball as he went up for the uncontested slam.

Oregon coach Dana Altman kept his players in the locker room for an extended period after the game.

"Disappointing performance. We've obviously got a lot of work to do," Altman said. "We couldn't guard their dribble drives, we gave up a lot of open 3s. There wasn't much defense there at all."

Oregon had its chances, especially in the first half when Washington's defensive rotations were sluggish and gave the Ducks looks at open perimeter shots. The Ducks were just 2 of 14 on 3-point attempts in the first half and finished 5 of 23. Singler made 4 of 9 shots in the first half, while the rest of the Ducks were a combined 7 for 25.

Garrett Sim added 13 points for Oregon but no one else showed up to help offensively.

"They took us out of a lot of our sets and we didn't move the ball as well as we did against Washington State and it showed in our shooting percentage," Singler said.

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Follow Tim Booth on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ByTimBooth

Source: http://www.seattlepi.com/sports/article/Wilcox-s-24-leads-Washington-past-Oregon-76-60-2435398.php

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