Arizona forward Jordan Hill swats away a shot by Oregon's Joevan Catron in the first half of the UA's 67-52 win Thursday at McKale Center.

DEAn KNUTH / arizona daily star

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Every time Tajuan Porter ran through the lane Thursday night, the Arizona Wildcats bench let those on the floor know it.

"Shooter through! Shooter through!" they called. "Twelve's on your side!"

The Wildcats gave Oregon's No. 12 the respect he deserved. Entering the game, the 5-foot-6-inch Porter averaged 14.9 points, tops on his team and No. 12 in the Pac-10 Conference.

"Every place he was, we tried to be there," UA interim head coach Russ Pennell said. "It was that simple."

The Wildcats held Porter to two points on 1-of-7 shooting, his worst scoring output of the season.

Porter has played two games this year in which he made only 1 of 10 shots — but still finished with five points and nine points.

"He's certainly the head of the dog, so to speak," Pennell said. "You need to make sure you can take him out."

Despite playing 17 minutes in the first half, Porter tried only four shots — and missed them all.

"It wasn't tough to get shots at all," the junior guard said. "We could have any shot we wanted. We just didn't knock down shots. We just didn't play well."

Porter and coach Ernie Kent insisted after the game that the Ducks just had a poor shooting night. That's undoubtedly true: They made 37 percent of their field goal attempts and only 4 of 22 three-point attempts.

The Ducks have eight freshmen and were playing their first road game of the season. Stopping the veteran Porter was essential.

"Our guys did a nice job on him," Pennell said. "He probably missed some shots he usually hits, too."

Kent said the Wildcats' pressing and trapping was responsible for only part of his team's failure. No one on Oregon scored more than nine points.

"Their press is not designed to get you to turn the ball over," Kent said. "It's designed to get you to make basketball plays. As long as you can make basketball plays, you can get open looks."

The Ducks, Kent said, simply couldn't score.

"What happens is, if you don't make shots, it allows them to run," he said. "If you look at tape, Cal made shots, Stanford made shots — and they both beat them pretty good. There are shots on the floor, and there are basketball plays on the floor.

"We made the plays, but we didn't make the shots. So we got half of it right."

● Was David Bagga the secret to Thursday's win?

Arizona forward Jamelle Horne said the little-used senior guard inspired his teammates before the game.

"It was Bagga," Horne said. "Bagga, Bagga, Bagga. We needed him, and he came through for us. He was yelling all kinds of stuff before the game that didn't even make sense, but it was loud, and we fed off of it."

Bagga checked in the game with 1:30 left for his third appearance of the season. About 40 seconds later, freshman D.J. Shumpert, a graduate of Santa Rita High School, made his third appearance of the year.

● Oregon freshman center Michael Dunigan played only 16 minutes because of foul trouble. He finished with nine points — but four fouls.

Arizona forward Jordan Hill finished with nine points and 12 rebounds.

"As good a big man as (Hill) is, it was good for me as a freshman to get that kind of experience," Dunigan said.