Tony Stubblefield and his new-look Oregon men’s basketball team put the product on the floor in front of a home crowd Oct. 15.
It wasn’t a debut to get excited about, even if the final result was of no consequence.
With Stubblefield calling the shots for the first time since taking over as interim head coach following Dana Altman’s unexpected retirement Oct. 7, the Ducks lost 71-65 to Seattle in an exhibition game at Matthew Knight Arena.
“We’ve only been going at it a couple of weeks but we have to get better,” said Stubbled, who had been an assistant under Altman for 13 of the former coach’s 16 seasons at Oregon. “We got to get back to practice, watch some film, and we got to be better next week than what we were this week.”
Oregon’s downfall was its 25 turnovers, an exorbitant number even for an exhibition game. The Redhawks turned those takeaways into 18 points. Seattle also outrebounded Oregon 41-40, including 16 offensive rebounds.
“You’re not going to give yourself a chance to win many basketball games if you turn the ball over 25 times and the other team gets 16 more attempts at the rim,” Stubblefield said. “So, we got a lot of work we have to do.”
Stubblefield was eager as anyone to see how his team would play Thursday night.
The Ducks have just two returning scholarship players from last season and 10 newcomers – eight of whom played against Seattle, including Oregon’s top three scorers.
Forward Pharaoh Compton, a transfer from San Diego State, came off the bench to score a team-high 15 with five rebounds. He was 4 for 4 from the field, 7 for 8 from the free-throw line and had one block and one steal in 18 minutes.
“I thought Pharaoh was very active,” Stubblefield said. “Did a good job at the line, did a good job defensively protecting the rim …I was impressed with the job Pharaoh did tonight.”
Forward Andrew Meadow, a Boise State transfer, had 12 points, and forward Taylor Bol Bowen, formerly of Alabama, had 11 points and a team-leading seven rebounds.
Returning forward Sean Stewart started and had two points and four rebounds in eight minutes before fouling out. Returning point guard Wei Lin came off the bench late in the first half and had nine points.
“We got to try some different combinations just to see exactly what we got,” Stubblefield said. “We experimented with different things we're trying to do defensively and offensively, and tinker with it.”
Freshman forward Seven Spurlock and USC transfer guard Jerry Easter II were the only two players who didn’t get on the floor.
The Ducks have two more exhibition games scheduled before the season begins Nov. 2 with a home game against Montana. Oregon plays Utah on Oct. 21 in Salt Lake City and Stanford on Oct. 25 at Matthew Knight Arena.
Chris Hansen covers University of Oregon football, men’s basketball, track and field, cross country and softball for The Register-Guard. You can reach him at chansen@registerguard.com.
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This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon men's basketball struggles in Stubblefield debut