Oregon has become Arizona's nemesis, a rivalry that will only grow after UCLA departs

Fifty years of McKale Center history are in the books now, and arguably the biggest overall Arizona rival to enter the place, UCLA, is on the way out.

Fittingly, the final men’s basketball game in McKale’s first half-century was the Wildcats’ 58-52 win over the Bruins, who are tentatively not scheduled to return to Tucson next season and will skip off to the Big Ten in 2024-25.

But maybe it’s also fitting that, for the first game of McKale’s second half-century, the team that has actually been the Wildcats’ biggest nemesis over the past decade — and possibly well into the future — will arrive.

Yes, we’re talking about Oregon.

Not only did the Ducks win three straight games at McKale Center until Arizona squeaked out an 84-81 win late last season, but they also won four straight overtime games against the Wildcats, including a 2016 Pac-12 Tournament semifinal in Las Vegas. Earlier in the 2015-16 season, Oregon also snapped Arizona’s 49-game winning streak … at McKale.

The Ducks like it here.

“It’s always a fun place to play,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said earlier this week. “I know our guys look forward to the challenge.”

Since Altman’s second season at Oregon in 2011-12, the Wildcats have been just 7-14 against the Ducks – and only 4-5 against Oregon at McKale. Against UCLA over that time period, Arizona is 12-13.

Moreover, the Ducks have handed Arizona some of its most painful losses of the past decade or so, starting with their 83-75 win over the Wildcats on Jan. 28, 2016, which snapped Arizona’s 49-game homecourt streak, prompting red-eyed forward Ryan Anderson to apologize to fans and then-coach Sean Miller to hold a vintage postgame news conference.

“I’ve never been more down looking at a team I coached than what I just saw,” Miller said after that game. “We gotta come to grips with probably two things. One: Sean Miller’s your coach and you’re going to play for me, and No 2 is you’re going to play so hard you can’t breathe.

“And if you can’t give extraordinary effort for our basketball program, on this team, for this university, we’ll put four guys out there.”

Things didn’t get any better later that season when the Wildcats rebounded from a 17-point deficit to Oregon in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinals … only to get bounced 95-89 in overtime, then shipped (probably as a result) to Providence, Rhode Island, where they were upset in their first game of the NCAA Tournament.

There was also that memorable 2017-18 affair in Eugene, when Miller left the team abruptly after an ESPN report the night before said he discussed a pay-for-play scheme for star center Deandre Ayton.

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Fans waved “100 Grand” candy bar signs at Ayton and booed him whenever he had the ball. A furious Ayton responded with 28 points and 18 rebounds, playing an exhausting 44 of 45 possible minutes, but the Ducks rode 14-of-33 3-point shooting to a 98-93 win in overtime.

“It’s very tough,” stand-in coach Lorenzo Romar said afterward. “Our leader isn’t with us, so it’s tough. But I thought our guys were phenomenal in how they came out.”

That game wound up being the first of a seven-game losing streak to Oregon that the Wildcats didn’t break until center Christian Koloko helped shut down perimeter players on the Ducks’ final two possessions last season in Arizona’s 84-81 win.

But then this, on Jan. 14 in Eugene: Oregon 87, Arizona 68 — the biggest loss margin for the Wildcats since Tommy Lloyd took over for Miller last season.

“They basically were able to manhandle us for most of the game,” Lloyd said Wednesday.

Maybe it helps the Wildcats that they have a fresh memory of that game, the way their Jan. 7 loss to Washington State fueled a win at WSU on Jan. 26.

“You hope so,” Lloys said while also noting that Oregon “seems to be playing their best basketball right now. Obviously we saw it and felt it firsthand … I’m looking forward to see how our guys respond.”

The two figures Arizona made available for comment Wednesday — Lloyd and freshman guard Kylan Boswell — probably haven’t been around long enough to sense any sort of big picture with Oregon.

“I’m not sure yet which teams really are rivals, except ASU,” Boswell said.

Plus, as Miller and Lloyd have noted over the years, all opponents tend to play their best against Arizona.

Except, more often than not over the past 12 seasons, Oregon has turned its effort against Arizona into a victory.

“I’ve only played against them a couple times, and they’ve played well both times,” Lloyd said. “I mean, they have a coach who’s won a lot of games, they’ve had a lot of success as a program. They have really talented players, and that’s usually a formula for being a tough night.”

Maybe a lot of tough nights in the future, too.