Longtime rivals Washington and Oregon will finish their lackluster regular seasons when they meet Saturday in Eugene, Ore.
Oregon (11-19, 4-15) has no hope of qualifying for the NCAA Tournament without winning next week’s Big Ten tournament and gaining the automatic entry. Washington (15-15, 7-12) is assured of not having to play on the first day of the tournament, where the Ducks will find themselves as one of the conference’s bottom four seeds.
The Huskies are coming off a 91-72 win over Southern California in their home regular-season finale in Seattle. Hannes Steinbach, a leading candidate for Big Ten Freshman of the Year, scored 22 points and grabbed 24 rebounds.
Zoom Diallo scored a career high 26 points in the win.
Steinbach, from Germany, continues to impress. He is just the third player in Washington history with 20 points and 20 rebounds in a game.
Additionally, he has 19 double-doubles, the most by a Big Ten freshman in the past 30 years, according to Washington athletics.
“We challenged him,” Washington head coach Danny Sprinkle said. “He dominated the glass, he dominated the paint and it opened up everything.”
Oregon has lost its past two games in a season atypical of Ducks basketball in the Dana Altman era. The Ducks will finish the regular season with their worst record since 2008-09, when they ended up 8-23. And for the first time since Altman took over as head coach in 2010, Oregon will not reach the 20-win mark.
Altman said he appreciated the fans sticking with the team amid the uncharacteristic season and hoped to have a big crowd on hand Saturday on Senior Day.
“Our core group of fans has been great. They’ve stayed with us,” Altman said. “I know it’s been tough on them. It’s been tough on the players.”
Oregon played without one of those seniors, 7-footer Nate Bittle, in its 72-57 loss to Washington in January in Seattle due to injury.
He’s the 41st player to score 1,000 career points at Oregon, and despite injury limiting him to 23 games, he has been the Ducks’ leading scorer (16.9 points per game).
Oregon is 22-10 against Washington under Altman, with wins in 11 of the last 12 meetings between the teams in its home arena.
This is the 319th all-time meeting between the Pacific Northwest schools.
