A classic finish for a champion.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

LOS ANGELES - In the history of Oregon basketball, the slow-motion image will endear for many years, seared in the memories of Duck basketball fans everywhere:

Freddie Jones, in the final seconds of a tie game in the Sports Arena.

"I want the ball, give me the ball," he says.

The senior guard gets it with less than 10 ticks left on the clock, the score tied at 65, a championship there for Oregon to grasp, destiny there for the Ducks to embrace, legacies and reputations forever at stake.

Jones drives into the key, hangs, shoots. The ball floats softly from 8 feet and almost sighs through the net with one second left.

Oregon 67, Southern Cal 65.

A trophy for the Ducks. A share, at least, of the first Pac-10 Conference title in Oregon men's basketball history. The first league title of any kind for Oregon since 1945.

And maybe, after all those decades, it was fitting that that long-sought, seemingly unreachable title be won exactly this way: the hard way.

By a team picked to finish in the second division. By a coach who was once and forever a Duck. By a group that supposedly couldn't win on the road. In a grueling, often ugly basketball game, in which the winners came from 11 down in the second half, then watched their own six-point lead evaporate.

And then they gave the ball to Freddie Jones, the in-state star from Gresham, the four-year starter, whose career, before this gritty Oregon stretch drive over recent weeks, and before that clutch, courageous shot Thursday night, was more often put in terms of what he hadn't done for Oregon than all he had.

Thursday night, what he did for Oregon was deliver a share of a championship, the events of Saturday to determine whether the Ducks share it or or keep it for themselves as they did last football season.

And when it was over, when Brandon Granville's bomb from beyond halfcourt at the buzzer got backboard, a frightening amount of center-cut rim and at last bounced away - while the Ducks' hearts stopped and started again - the Ducks celebrated on the floor and exchanged hugs and whoops of joy, and from the stands came athletic director Bill Moos to embrace the coach, Ernie Kent, he hired five years ago, the Kamikaze Kid who came home.

"This is probably one of the happiest moments of my life, to do that for my school," said Kent, who proudly told his team that it's one of the very best in UO history.

Kent recounted where this championship season began, which was really in the ashes of last season, a bitter disappointment for the Ducks. He talked again about how hard the Ducks worked last summer and how committed they were to each other. He remembered, as did his players, how the Ducks decided before the season began that they could do this.

And he told of Oregon's disappointment, after losing in overtime at Stanford and double-overtime at California, and how, three weekends ago, the Ducks knew it could come down to this game and this weekend.

"We sat there and said `our destiny lies in L.A.,' ' Kent said.

But for most of the game, it seemed as if Oregon's destiny was to be the fate it had known too well over those decades without a title - disappointment, again.

The Trojans' press got the Ducks out of their rhythm. The crowd of 11,505 was screaming, loud. In a ragged first half, Oregon had 14 turnovers, and the Ducks were getting mashed on the boards, and the players on whom the Ducks had relied so much were struggling.

Jones, so tough for Oregon since December, was just 2-of-10 in the first half, and missed his six three-point tries. Point guard Luke Ridnour couldn't hit shots and couldn't stop USC guard Errick Craven. Fellow sophomore Luke Jackson went scoreless, seemingly lost in the noise and the frenetic pace the Trojans were causing.

In the second half, the Trojans pushed the lead to 11, the last time at 53-42 with 11:06 remaining, and then Oregon's Anthony Lever missed a three-pointer, and maybe the Trojans were a three-pointer away from burying Oregon then and there.

Except, in a play that seemed almost inconsequential, Lever forced a turnover and at the other end Jackson jammed for his first field goal of the game, and then on Oregon's next possession, Jackson drove on Sam Clancy and hung a fourth foul on the USC star with 10:13 left, and the game turned back Oregon's way.

Down the stretch, Jackson took over. Ridnour hit a three. And Jones, who'd waited his career, in good times and sad, for this moment, hit the winner.

In the context of this season, it was not a classic Oregon game. The Ducks didn't romp with a score into the 80s. They got the Trojans' best shot, and the Trojans are very good, a team that reached the Elite Eight last season.

And yet, looking ahead a couple of weeks, this is the very kind of game that Oregon might have to win to advance in the NCAA Tournament - a game in which the three-pointers aren't dropping, and nothing comes easily, and a game that comes down to which team can best weather the tough stretches and, in the final, heart-stopping seconds, which team can make a shot of destiny, the kind of shot that a program and its fans long remember.

Thursday night, that team was Oregon and, at long last, it meant a championship.