It wasn’t supposed to be this easy. Not against Oregon, the last team to beat Stanford, 71-66 some six games ago. Not for the No. 9 Cardinal, who was supposed to have lost its heads in the hoopla of its first top-10 ranking in four years.

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Sophomore center Robin Lopez helped Stanford avenge an earlier loss to the Ducks with 15 points and 6 rebounds in last night’s 72-43 victory. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/8507
Alex Oppenheimer

Sophomore center Robin Lopez helped Stanford avenge an earlier loss to the Ducks with 15 points and 6 rebounds in last night’s 72-43 victory.

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Sophomore center Robin Lopez came up big in Stanford’s 72-43 thrashing of Oregon, scoring 15 points while grabbing 6 rebounds. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/8508
Alex Oppenheimer

Sophomore center Robin Lopez came up big in Stanford’s 72-43 thrashing of Oregon, scoring 15 points while grabbing 6 rebounds.

It was supposed to be more fun. A back-and-forth battle, we were promised, with the quickest Pac-10 team driving the lane at will on one side of the court and the biggest team in the league pounding the paint on the other.

Instead, it was a victory so dominant it was joyless.

Behind a ruthless, smothering defense, Stanford clobbered Oregon 72-43 last night at Maples Pavilion. It was the fewest points Oregon (13-9, 4-6 Pac-10) has scored in a game since 1991, and as few as Stanford (19-3, 8-2 Pac-10) has allowed all season. Sophomore center Robin Lopez led all players with 15 points, junior forward Lawrence Hill scored 13 and sophomore forward Brook Lopez added 12.

“Our offensive execution probably was as good as it’s been all year,” said coach Trent Johnson, who had never before won 19 games in a season as Stanford head coach. “But I look at our defensive efficiency, and say that’s what’s going to take care of us.”

Oregon, meanwhile, sounded postgame much like it looked during the two hours previous: shellshocked.

“You saw Oregon at their worst tonight,” said Ducks forward Malik Hairston (6 points). “It’s the most embarrassing loss of my senior year. It was a terrible effort by Oregon.”

Two 7-0 runs, a Hill three capping the second, pushed Stanford ahead 16-7 just 4:29 in. The Cardinal was on pace to score 143 points, and while that pace wouldn’t hold up, the lead certainly did. An 8-0 spurt pushed Stanford ahead 27-11 in the first 11 minutes, and that margin grew to 37-23 by halftime, even though Anthony Goods’ 40-foot heave was disallowed as its release came just after the halftime buzzer.

It was about the only thing that would go wrong for the Cardinal, who shot 55 percent in that first half and 49 percent (27-of-55) for the game. Meanwhile, Oregon’s accuracy was horrendous. The Ducks shot just 24 percent in the first half and 29 percent (14-of-48) overall. Those marks were far lower than their previous season-low 40 percent accuracy in a December loss at Nebraska. A woeful 4-of-18 (22 percent) performance from behind the arc only added salt to the Ducks’ wounds.

“We killed ourselves on the perimeter,” Hairston said. “We couldn’t make shots.”

Stanford came out in the second half with as much as it had in the first, completing two more 7-0 runs. The margin was 50-29 with 13 minutes left after the first and 63-33 with under six minutes to go after the second.

The Stanford men were on their way to beating Oregon by the exact same score as the women would moments earlier in Eugene, Ore. More importantly to Trent Johnson, the lopsided game allowed him to rest his bruised and battered starters (the Lopez twins played 28 minutes apiece, while no other starter played more than 22), letting the second string shine.

Reserve guard Drew Shiller seized the moment with 8 points on five shots, the last a surprisingly decisive driving right-handed layup. The offensive spark Shiller injected into the lineup may bode well in the coming weeks.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that we play physical defense, so if we get better offense, we have a chance to win a lot of basketball games,” Johnson said.

Oregon State’s (6-16, 0-10) 5 p.m. visit tomorrow is a likely place to start. The Beavers, winless since Dec. 19, are the Pac-10’s one cupcake. Stanford needs a win to remain just a game behind UCLA (21-2, 9-1) in the conference title hunt.

The Bruins, 67-59 winners over Washington State (17-5, 5-5) in last night’s premier league game, host the schools’ one remaining tilt in March, and thus have the inside track for their third-straight Pac-10 title. But Stanford is firmly establishing itself in second, holding a two-game lead over USC and Arizona.