Washington St. @ Oregon preview

Last Meeting ( Mar 6, 2019 ) Oregon 72, Washington St. 61

After leaning on its improving defense to close the regular season with four straight wins, Oregon enters this week’s Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas as the hottest team in the conference. The sixth-seeded Ducks look to continue their late-season surge Wednesday in a first-round matchup against No. 11 seed Washington State.

Buried in the Pac-12 standings after opening with a 2-4 mark, Oregon held three of its final four conference opponents to 51 points or fewer and handed Washington its only home loss of the season last Saturday. Since losing 90-83 at UCLA on Feb. 23, the Ducks have limited their last four opponents to 34.7 percent shooting overall and 23 percent on 3-pointers. “We made a change after the UCLA game,” point guard Payton Pritchard told reporters. “The last five games, we've played one bad half of basketball and that was the second half of UCLA. After that we’ve been stellar.” Oregon’s drive to win four games in four days begins against Washington State, which is riding a five-game losing streak but boasts the league’s top scorer in senior forward Robert Franks.

TV: 11:30 p.m. ET, Pac-12 Network

ABOUT WASHINGTON STATE (11-20): Franks received first team All-Pac-12 honors after averaging 22.1 points and 7.4 rebounds per game, while guard CJ Elleby (14.9 points, seven rebounds) was named to the league’s all-freshman team. Franks scored a career-high 37 points on eight 3-pointers in last Saturday’s 85-77 loss to Oregon State and had 19 points in last month’s 78-58 loss to Oregon in Eugene. Junior forward Jeff Pollard is shooting 59.3 percent for the Cougars, who are last in the Pac-12 in scoring defense at 78.5 points per game.

ABOUT OREGON (19-12): Pritchard scored a team-high 16 points in last Saturday’s 55-47 win over Washington while freshmen Louis King and Francis Okoro combined for 16 points and 19 rebounds. Okoro has averaged eight rebounds in the past four games and emerged as a perfect complement to 6-9 sophomore Kenny Wooten, who was named to the Pac-12 all-defensive team for the second year in a row after averaging 6.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.9 blocks. Wooten had 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting and three blocks in last month’s win over the Cougars.

TIP-INS

1. The winner advances to face third-seeded Utah in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

2. Oregon is 13-4 in the Pac-12 tournament since 2013, including two championship titles.

3. Washington State is seeking its first conference tournament victory since 2009.

PREDICTION: Oregon 72, Washington State 64