EUGENE, Ore. — Oregon is feeling the urgency of needing a late-season run to make the NCAA Tournament, and the Ducks showed that in the second half Wednesday.
Damyean Dotson and Joseph Young combined for 23 points after halftime, sparking Oregon to a 78-71 win over Washington on Wednesday.
Oregon’s Mike Moser had 20 points, Young 18 and Dotson 17 in coach Dana Altman’s 500th Division I win. Oregon shot 57 percent from the floor.
The Ducks (17-8, 5-8 Pac 12) won back-to-back games for the first time since their 13-0 start ended Jan. 5.
“We need all these games and it’s good momentum going into the (Pac-12) tournament,” said Oregon senior guard Johnathan Loyd, who got his school-record 90th win in the program. “If we can stay hot and get hot during the tournament, that benefits us.”
Perris Blackwell led Washington (14-13, 6-8) with 17 points, Andrew Andrews added 15 and Nigel Williams-Goss and Desmond Simmons had 12 apiece.
Oregon quickly erased a three-point halftime deficit as Young capped a 10-0 run with a 3-pointer to make it 46-39 Ducks.
Washington closed within one before Oregon stretched it out to a 58-52 lead on Dotson’s tip-in with 13:01 remaining.
The Huskies later scored five straight, with two C.J. Wilcox free throws tying the game at 60 with 9:11 left.
Oregon scored the game’s next five points and never trailed again.
The Ducks took a 71-63 lead on Ben Carter’s two foul shots with 6:29 left. Washington got no closer than three from there, scoring just one point after Williams-Goss got the Huskies within 73-70 on a lay-in with 2:34 left.
Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar said his team wasn’t able to gather any momentum despite tying the score in the latter part of the second half.
“I think they were on a roll and just continued to make shots,” Romar said.
Moser’s 20 points — on 8 of 12 from the field — are his most in the last nine games.
Dotson, a quiet sophomore guard, showed rare emotions as he helped rally the Ducks in the second half.
His 17 points (on 7 of 8 shooting) tied a season high, which he first set back in late November.
“I guess just from me not playing so well at the beginning of the year,” Dotson said of his outbursts. “Just trying to get back to my rhythm and just playing hard.”
Washington has now lost five of its last six games since starting 5-3 in Pac-12 play.
Wilcox, a senior guard who came in averaging 18.8 points per game, was held to nine, his third single-digit total in the last four games.
