Dean Knuth / arizona daily star

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Many effective coaching moves are the product of good scouting or keen on-the-fly thinking.

Then there are those that surface just when your hands are shooting up in the air, waving a figurative white flag.

Late in the first half of Arizona's 84-74 loss to Oregon on Saturday at McKale Center, UA interim coach Kevin O'Neill had one of those moments.

O'Neill inserted walk-on guard David Bagga for the first significant seconds of his college career. Bagga then quickly stole the ball, preventing a potential Ducks basket and setting up a layup by Nic Wise on the other end.

Result: After trailing Oregon by 19 in the first half, UA entered halftime with some momentum, down by just a workable 11 points.

"I just put Bagga in there because at that point, I didn't know who else to put in, to be honest with you," O'Neill said. "So I figured, let's put Bagga in and he'll do something and he got a steal. That wasn't anything genius, believe me."

By then, O'Neill's frustration had started boiling over. He had already called all five of his allotted timeouts for the game, and burned through a limited corps of perimeter players.

Wise, Jawann McClellan and Chase Budinger were already playing all 20 minutes of the half and, with Oregon using five perimeter-minded guys much of the time, O'Neill needed another.

But Jerryd Bayless was sitting out for the third straight game because of a sprained knee. Daniel Dillon had three fouls, necessitating a benching until halftime. Two other possibilities were out: Laval Lucas-Perry transferred to Michigan last month and Zane Johnson is redshirting.

So to O'Neill, who always seeks to create the best possible defensive matchups, there was no other choice but to play Bagga.

"There's not enough bodies over there at the perimeter positions to play them size down the whole game like we needed to," O'Neill said. "That was one of our downfalls today and let's face it, when we play without Jerryd, we're not quite as good a team."

It's a downfall that has already put Arizona at a disadvantage if the Wildcats have any hope of winning the Pac-10 title. The UA is now 10-4 overall and 1-1 in conference play entering a string of three road Pac-10 games, plus a nonconference matchup at Houston. There is no definite timetable for Bayless' return, either, although he could return Wednesday at ASU.

There were other ominous trends for Arizona, too.

Instead of being the rugged defensive team they have tried to be since O'Neill's hiring in May, the Wildcats allowed the Ducks (10-4, 1-1) to shoot 56 percent from the field and hit 10 of 22 three-pointers, their worst percentage defense of the season.

Instead of being strong on the boards, Arizona was out-rebounded 19-12 in the first half and 35-28 overall.

Instead of starting out strong against a team it knew it had to jump on, Arizona trailed 44-25 less than 16 minutes into the game, suffering again from Jordan Hill's foul trouble. Hill committed a second foul with 12:11 left before halftime when Frantz Dorsainvil scored to give Oregon a 19-17 lead — and Hill sat out while the Wildcats were outscored 29-20 the rest of the first half.

"We can't continually get down 20 and dig out a hole," O'Neill said. "You just can't. It took a lot for us to get back to where we had a chance and then we just couldn't get key stops. We needed one more stop and one more basket to make it a real game and we didn't come up with that."

Early in the second half, Arizona chipped away at Oregon's 48-37 halftime lead, getting layups from Budinger and Hill to make it 58-52 with 12:30 left. They also cut the lead to 73-68 with 5:58 left on a jumper from Budinger.

But Oregon's Kamyron Brown answered Budinger's bucket with a three, expanding the Ducks' lead to eight and helping make Budinger's season-high 30 points feel especially unsatisfying.

"We started switching baskets in the second half, and they just kept answering it," Budinger said. "We've got to get tough on defense. We were able to force tough shots but they got to loose balls, and had some easy putbacks. It's tough."

Several Wildcats said the Ducks made it harder by spreading out so well offensively, keeping the UA from playing effective help defense. But to McClellan, who watched Oregon's Bryce Taylor hit three three-pointers within two minutes in the first half and Malik Hairston score 29 for the game, there was more to it than that.

"It has a lot to do with heart," McClellan said. "You've gotta want to shut down somebody."