Dana Altman

Oregon coach Dana Altman watches his team play Washington during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Eugene, Ore. on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014. Oregon won 78-71, and Altman picked up his 500th career win. (AP Photo/Chris Pietsch)

EUGENE -- When Oregon awakens Thursday morning it will still be in 10th place in the Pac-12, which is six spots behind its predicted preseason finish, unchanged from its standing entering the week and still very much leaves UO on the outside looking in at its preferred postseason destination.

That place in the Pac-12 pecking order is a reminder that if Oregon is to make a climb toward a second consecutive NCAA Tournament, progress will be slow.

But though its latest step won’t be reflected in the standings just yet, the Ducks are indeed moving up.

Its 78-71 victory against Washington at Matthew Knight Arena was as much about the modest progress it represented – a second straight victory – as it was the grand milestones it achieved. Coach Dana Altman won his 500th career Division I victory and Johnathan Loyd set the program record for career victories with 90.

“Guys have stayed resilient,” Altman said. “They stayed together. The seniors have tried to lead. It's really important for those guys to finish strong, so yeah I like the way they've handled it. We were all … it was a tough stretch and we've still got a lot of work ahead of us, but the great thing for us is we're going to have our shot.”

Since a Jan. 23 defeat in Seattle that was Oregon’s fifth straight, UO is 4-3 – an uneven but upward stretch that was much like Wednesday’s game in that it was anybody’s to win even in the final minutes.

Instead of falling victim to another late collapse, Oregon (17-8, 5-8 Pac-12) wrestled the victory away by in-your-face defense on Pac-12 third-leading scorer C.J. Wilcox, a 10-0 run that began the second half and a one-two punch of Damyean Dotson (17 points) and Mike Moser (20 points). At times during Oregon’s mid-season swoon, all of those elements were missing, but they were pieced together when UO needed to in front of a sparse 6,792.

Oregon's Joseph Young goes up for a shot past Washington's C.J. Wilcox, left, Oregon's Damyean Dotson, center left, and Washington's Andrew Andrews during the first half an NCAA college basketball game in Eugene, Ore., on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014. (AP Photo/Chris Pietsch)

Joseph Young added 18 points for the Ducks.

Such a turnaround was aided by Moser’s clutch three-point play off a broken play with 91 seconds remaining. Oregon didn’t space the floor correctly – Altman said UO was “stumbling” through the possession – and Moser yelled from the three-point arc at Elgin Cook to clear out from his low-post position. When Cook jogged five feet to his left, he brought his defender with him and created a lane to the hoop Moser took advantage of.

The bucket fouled out Desmond Simmons, whose 12 points helped Washington to a three-point halftime advantage, and gave UO a 76-70 lead.

“We messed up the play,” Moser said. “I broke it off and did my own thing and it worked out.”

It was not a dominant Ducks’ performance, but one they claimed by executing in key moments.

“We need all these,” said Loyd, who scored nine points and had three assists and three turnovers in his 90th career victory to pass E.J. Singler, whom he joked he would immediately call to gloat.

“We're kind of on the bubble still and we had a little slide so we need all these games.”

Moser’s bucket, for example, came three possessions after of an injury to Dotson’s left pinkie finger that left UO without its best player at each end. His 17 points tied a season high and his defense limited Wilcox to nine points, half his season average. And Dotson’s 5-of-5 second-half shooting followed Oregon’s 10-0 run to start the second half that caught the Huskies flat-footed.

“I thought defensively (Dotson) had a great night,” Altman said. “Offensively he had a very good night but I thought his shot selection and taking the ball to the basket was very good. … I think he knows what he's looking for. We've shown him statistically what he's really good at and he knows what he wants right now.”

Dotson demurred initially afterward when asked if his scoring touch felt “hot,” the naturally reserved player a little embarrassed by Moser and Loyd’s quiet laughs on either side of him. But as he took a mental inventory of his night – the four rebounds, the 7-of-8 shooting, the put-back bucket that gave UO a 58-52 second-half lead and elicited a fist-pump – he reconsidered.

“OK,” Dotson said, “I would say I did feel pretty hot.”

Oregon shot 56.9 percent and made two-thirds of their shots in the second half, when it had six more field goals than the Huskies on the same number of attempts.

In the three days before Oregon (17-8, 5-8) plays Washington State, it will likely seek answers to why it, a strong offensive-rebounding team, was outrebounded by nine on that end and 12 overall. And how 6-foot-9 Perris Blackwell, who was such a difference-maker in the teams’ first meeting, was allowed to score 10 points in the game’s first 13 minutes.

Altman was so incensed with Oregon’s defense in the first half -- center Waverly Austin was fooled on a pump fake and allowed his man, Simmons, to cut behind him for an assisted layup – that the coach called timeout and slammed his plastic clipboard onto the arena floor in the middle of his huddle.

In a half-empty arena, the slam was clearly audible. It not only turned heads from the seats but woke up his team, as well. And for that, they’ll awaken Thursday one win better than before, with their slow climb still going.