Dana Altman vs.

Here's just a few fun little tidbids. Read into them as much, or as little, as you like.

At Creighton, Dana Altman has only coached against 1 current Pac-10 head coach, that being Arizona's Sean Miller. Creighton was 3-1 vs. Miller's Xavier squad.

The Tucson Citizen has some quotes from Miller at the time.

“They beat us up,” Miller said before Xavier ended the three-game losing streak with a 79-66 win on Dec. 5, 2007. “They hit us in the mouth, and I say that in a positive way.

“One of the reasons they beat us three years in a row is their style. They really force you to handle pressure and compete at a high level.”

Even though Miller is his only Pac-10 rival, Altman has coached against some other targets on our coaching search.

Mark Turgeon was the head coach of another Missouri Valley Conference member, Wichita State, from 2000-2007. Perhaps its not an overly fair contest, as Altman had the time to build Creighton up before Turgeon began. However, Turgeon was 71-55, in conference, during those years while Altman was 91-35. As you can guess, Altman had the upper hand in the head to head meetings, 12-4. Turgeon only finished ahead of Altman once in those 7 seasons, before parlaying it into the Texas A&M gig.

According to Fox Sports, Mark had this to say about the hire.

"He’s a great hire for Oregon,” Turgeon said. "He runs a great system that is disciplined, but very exciting. I’ve watched Dana do more with less better than any coach in the country. Dana and his family with fit perfectly into the community. It’s a great hire by Pat Kilkenny.”

Billy Donovan, often rumored to be linked to airplane drops full of money Phil Knight was supposedly going to give him for the Oregon job, has also played against Dana Altman. One of Altman's tournament wins was knocking off #5 seed Florida, in the ill-fated 12/5 matchup, in 2002. A clutch 3 pointer by Terrell Taylor sealed the deal in a classic March Madness finish.

Altman later lost to Florida in the 2008 NIT, so has a 1-1 record against Billy D.

In the final week of the search Dayton's Brian Gregory was also supposedly on the short list. Altman also played Gregory to a standstill, 2-2 in four meetings against the Flyers.

A couple other names we've heard come up during our search that Altman played against, at Creighton, and his record against them.

Mike Brey (Notre Dame) 1-0
Tad Boyle (N. Colorado) 1-0
Steve Alford (New Mexico) 1-1

And the job falls to...Dana Altman.

Make no mistake. Dana Altman wasn't our first, second, or even third choice. The process of searching for a coach, after firing Ernie Kent, was monumentally bungled. When you hear Joe Giansante spin stories about how magnificent the search process was, its not true.

With all that said, we probably ended up with a better coach than the search process warranted. We didn't do him any favors in giving him the job 2 weeks after the Spring signing period began, and for that reason Dana Altman hired a month ago is a much better hire than Dana Altman hired today. However, Dana Altman is a very good coach.

I've seen mixed reactions from Duck fans, and fans from other programs, many of whom have never heard of Altman. If you haven't heard of him, its because you don't really follow college basketball. Altman's name was always brought up for major conference job openings, along with guys like Mark Few, a handful of years ago. His star has faded a bit since he backed out of taking the Arkansas job a few years ago, but he was a very hot name in coaching awhile back. Back during our first Elite 8 run, Creighton was actually in our bracket. They knocked off Florida in the first round and then fell to the same Illinois team that beat us. That was the tail end of a stretch of 5 consecutive NCAA tournaments that Altman had taken Creighton to, and he was thought to be the "next big thing", in coaching.

In hindsight, he probably should have bolted then, while his star was brightest. In athletics I'm a believer in the philosophy, "if you can go, you should go". I just think the odds are against you sticking around, as unfair as it might seem. Look no further than Taylor Mays this weekend. Could have been a top-10 pick last year. Falls to the 3rd round, after Pete Carroll passes on him 3 times, this year.

Loyalty is a great quality. Unfortunately its not rewarded in sports. When you are a hot name, nobody even considers the downside. When you stick around past that point, people begin to nitpick and to really study you more in-depth. Again, if you're a hot name, and you ever want to move on you should just do it, because odds are there's nowhere to go but down.

I think you could make the same argument about Ernie. Shortly after that first Elite 8, Ernie could have gone. If he did, nobody would have ever thought anything other than that he was great here. His first 6 seasons resulted in 3 tournament appearances, including that Elite 8, a Pac-10 championship and we finished in the top half of the conference 5 out of those 6 years. Ernie could have walked away a legend, gotten a better job and again, if people took my advice of leaving when they are hot, we might have ended up with Dana Altman right then as well.

I'll be doing a lot more, in-depth, blogging on Altman in the coming days and weeks. With some detailed looks, and probably video, of his Creighton teams. With scores and analysis of how they play against top competition, and lesser competition. And how I think he'll utilize the roster we have returning.

Thud!

Hopes come crashing down, once again, as Mike Anderson turns down a million dollar raise to coach here. Its not overly suprising. I was more suprised that he appeared to show interest, last week, to be honest. I never thought he would be on our list. Anderson is my favorite coach in the game, though, so this one definitely stings. We won't do better than him.

Not that we have to do better than him, to be successful. Some of the names we are hearing now, however, definitely are not better. Mark Gottfried is the latest name they are throwing around. Yes, Mark Gottfried with some baggage. Yes, Mark Gottfried, forced out of his alma mater midway through last season in part because of results like the 30 point beating Oregon's 8 win team gave him in the Maui Invitational.

It was only one game, and Gottfried's entire tenure at Alabama wasn't as bad as that last year might have made it seem, but still he's a pretty medicore hire. 7 tournaments in 13 years is nice, and better than what Ernie did, but not outstanding. They were a middle of the road SEC team for most of his tenure, and he did go as far as the Elite 8 one year in the tournament. He's probably a better coach than Ernie, despite the results of the last head to head meeting. With that said there are advantages at coaching your alma mater. Ernie had some here, and Gottfried did at 'Bama. Its hard to say if he would be any more successful than Ernie, better coach or not.

Mike Anderson would be the perfect fit for us

The latest news is all a buzz about Pat Kilkenny meeting with Mike Anderson today, in an attempt to entice him to Oregon. This is absolutely great news, to me, and would be a fantastic hire. Mike Anderson would be the perfect coach for Oregon right now and I hope we can make it happen.

First of all, if you've read my posts on the message boards in the past, or read this blog a bit, you probably know that Anderson is my #1 "fantasy" choice for a coach. To be honest, I never thought he was on our radar, or more importantly, that we were on his radar. He's a southern guy who has played, coached and lived exclusively in the south. And while he's a hot name in coaching, he doesn't tend to get the big hype in part for that reason. He's been mostly a regional guy, and not in our region.

However, I started following his coaching career when he was at UAB. I first really took note of him in 2004, when UAB beat Washington in the first round of the tournament. It was the most fun game to watch in the tourney that year, UAB won 102-100 and that was not an Overtime score. Both teams were really getting up and down the court.

Anderson is an outstanding coach, who coached under Nolan Richardson for 17 years. He took over at UAB in 2002 and won 22+ games there every year for 4 seasons. He took UAB to the NCAA tournament 3 times in those 4 years (and the NIT semi finals the other year), going as far as the Sweet Sixteen. He then rebuilt Mizzouri and went as far as the Elite 8, just last season, which was also a 31 win season.

Anderson is a good recruiter and graduates players. Ernie's tradition in the classroom would likely continue under Mike Anderson.

Most of all, Anderson is a perfect fit for our current roster. He has adopted Nolan Richardson's "40 minutes of Hell" strategy, where they play pressure defense all the time, and pick up full court. Its incredibley fun style of play to watch that emphasizes a fast pace game, and forces that on the defensive end of the floor. The make up of his team consists of a stable full of great athletes, and liberal substitutions. Our roster was recruited to do the same thing, we just didn't have a coach that knew how to do so. We even heard lip service to playing "40 feet of hell" at the beginnig of this year, if you remember.

Malcom Armstead is a prototypical Mike Anderson point guard. Teondre Williams and Jamil Wilson would be electric in his system. Garrett Sim excels in the open court, but really struggles in the half court. EJ Singler is great playing a point-forward role on the break. Humphrey, Longmire and Dunigan are all well suited for an open court style of play.

Terrence Jones and Terrence Ross, should they decide to come to Oregon, would be outstanding under Mike Anderson.

You really couldn't find a better match for our current roster than Mike Anderson.

Those who know college basketball, and Mike Anderson, will be instantly excited by this hire. For those that don't know him, they will come flocking to Mac Court when we start blasting teams and putting up 90-100 points per game in the non-conference.

If Mike Anderson opens the new arena, we are going to have a success on our hands. Our style of play in basketball will resemble the exciting style of play we have in football. Does having the most entertaining brand of football and basketball sound like something the powers that be might be interested in having?

I think so too.

Mike Anderson would be the perfect fit for Oregon basketball. The only question now is, does he see it as the right fit for him?

The Coaching Search of Diminishing Returns

So, what's the plan now? What has been the plan so far, for that matter? We got a tiny glimpse inside the process, in some stories and quotes over the past couple days, but nothing that sounds promising.

Unfortunately, time is ticking away. 6 days to go, before the spring signing period. Terrence Jones is going to wait a week longer, but time may be running out on signing him, or anybody else worthwhile, if a new coach isn't hired immediately.

It seems that the search has focused on a few names that were unlikely to come, in Dixon and Stevens. While little else has been confirmed, Kilkenny has admitted to discussions with those two. Bob Clark keeps throwing out Mike Anderson as a name, and while I'd love it to happen, he's more unrealstic than the previous two names. However, there are an awful lot of coaches that we haven't seemed to give a look to, for whatever reason.

My last post focused on Baylor's Scott Drew. He's gotten almost no attention, from day 1, but seemed like our best chance at a major conference coach, with a deep tourny run to his credit. I'm really baffled by the omission of him in this search.

The proximity to the spring signing period may now also be one more negative in the growing list of problems with this coaching search. We are the only Pac-10 school without a basketball commitment. We have, at minimum, 2 rides to give and that's assuming zero player turnover with a new coach being signed (which often is not an accurate assumption). If things stay as they are, in 2 years our new coach will lose 8 players from our huge sophomore class. These are all factors a new coach will consider, as he knows he's expected to come in and bring us success. With signing so close, will the new coach even have a realistic chance to fill our open spots (and any others that come open with player turnover) with players of the quality he will need to get the program headed in the right direction?

If Terrence Jones is one of those players, the answer is most certainly, yes. However time may be running out for him, if it hasn't already.

Factors like these may mean that coaches we could have landed a couple weeks ago, will be harder to sell on the job in the coming days and weeks. According to Kilkenny we are "not really" close to a hire at the moment.

Scott Drew, or Lon Kruger, would be our best bet to get coaches that have had success in a major conference. Both coaches are in good situations right now, and the dealys in this search are making our situation worse by the day. I'm not sure that either would leave, even given a raise, though I expect one or both may have if we'd gone at them awhile ago.

Billy Gillespie was in Beaverton yesterday, though it may have just been for the Nike Hoop Summit. A lot of fans don't want to deal with his baggage, but we may not have much choice at this point. The problem with getting a good coach at this stage, is that we need them much more than they need us. Gillespie is a very good coach that, due to his baggage, would need us as much, if not more, than we need him.

We have a couple ways we can go. Hire an unproven coach with no (known) baggage, or a proven coach with some blemishes. It would appear that hiring a proven coach with a sterling record and no issues, is out of the question for us.

Randy Bennett is still on the table, but I still really fail to get too excited about him. We may need to just bite the bullet and take him, at some point, but I just worry far too greatly about his recruiting. He relies on a connection with an Australian national team that I just don't know A) if it will last and B) how well it will translate to the Pac-10. Also, much like the other choices, believe it or not, I'm not entirely sure he'll even take the job at this point. We've drug it on too long, pushed too close to the signing period, and hindered our next coach's ability to be successful here.

PJ Carlesimo and Terry Porter keep getting mentioned. I'm completely against either one, though I suppose I'd rather have Porter, but just barely. Porter has zero college coaching experience. I don't mean head coaching experience, he has zero of any kind. Never been a college assistant, or anything. He quit playing in 2002, was an NBA assistant for only one year before taking a head coaching job. As an NBA coach, he has an under .500 record and was fired twice in only 2.5 seasons. Its a desperation hire, and we may be desperate, but I would rather take a flier on an unknown, or even assistant, from the college game than on Terry Poter.

Taking your time to get "the right" coach, rather than just any coach is a good thing...within reason. A coaching search isn't like every other job search out there and we have reached a point in which the longer it drags on the worse our coaching candidates are going to get.

I'd go after Scott Drew, now.

The latest news has Jamie Dixon signing an extension at Pitt today.

Now, I'm going to make some assumptions. Lets assume that we don't have something serious in the works with Tom Izzo or Billy Donovan. Let's assume that the movement of Gonzaga assistants means that Mark Few is staying put. Let's assume that Tubby Smith is staying at Minnesota. Let's assume that Turgeon is happy with his extension.

Well, that's pretty much depleated our list of tier 1 coaches. Other names that are, or might be, mentioned are Brad Stevens of Butler, Steve Alford of New Mexico, Randy Bennett of Saint Mary's and Scott Drew of Baylor.

This list is a huge step down from the top tier. Stevens is getting a lot of love, but I think he's a huge risk and too green (no pun intended) for our job. We are looking to take Oregon to "the next level", wherever that may be. We are coming in, guns blazing, plopping down fistfulls of cash to build the most expensive arena in the conference. We fired a fairly successfull coach by our standards, to turn our basketball program into something more along the lines of our football program, if not even bigger. Nike is an even bigger player in the basketball world and we'll be putting that connection out there, for the world to see, like we have been for football.

Brad Stevens is 33 years old. He's coached for 3 years, at any level. He's, undeniabley done an outstanding job, but is he really ready to step up to this level? Consider this...He grew up in a tiny town in Indiana ( population 8,700). He played ball at DePauw University (enrollment 2,400). He then started as an assistant at Butler (enrollment 4,000) at age 23 and has been there ever since. He was handed Butler in an already good situation, and has done a great job with it.

I think its an awful tough task to ask him to take over an operation the scale that we are asking him to. I also have serious doubts about him even being all that interested in the job, given his current situation.

Steve Alford has a track record similar to Ernie's. You could even consider it worse, depending on your point of view. It doesn't have the lows that Kent did, but it also doesn't have the highs. In 8 years at Iowa he only went to the tournament 3 times, and only won 1 game there. He finished in 2nd place once, in 4th place twice and in the bottom half of the conference the other 5 seasons. He had only 3 seasons with a .500 or better conference record.

Randy Bennett has done a good job at Saint Mary's. He's done even better than Ernie did there. However, he's relied entirely on recruiting Australian players and I really question how he will recruit at Oregon. Also, his last game was a flat out embarrasment in that loss to Baylor. I know its only one game, but to flop that badly in the tournament (even the Sweet Sixteen) makes you wonder. Ernie came from Saint Mary's as well, and its definitely not an exciting hire. I just don't think you fire Ernie and replace him with either Alford or Bennett.

That leaves Scott Drew. The negative with Drew is that it took him quite awhile to get going at Baylor. He inherited a really horrid program and his first 4 seasons were all losers. His last 3, however, have all been been 20 game winners, culminating in this year's elite 8 run. He plays up-tempo ball. He's doing it in a major conference. He recruits well. His bigs are agressive and dunk the ball when they're near the rim. He's really built Baylor from the ground up into a fine looking program, and one that's really fun to watch. He comes from a good basketball family, with ties all over the country, and I think if you give him the new arena he's got the most upside of the remaining candidates.

Now, perhaps one of our first choices will still take the job. Its far from unheard of for guys to leave, even shortly after signing extensions. All we can do, from the sidelines, is make wild guesses based on all the misleading information that's out there. If we are, where we appear to be, with this search, Scott Drew is the guy I would want us to get.

KEZI says Tubby Smith is not a candidate.

A U of O source has apparently told KEZI that Tubby Smith is not a candidate and has not been contacted. kohd.com/page/167831

If the reports are all true, it has to make you wonder about what is going on with the search.

Donovan is reportedly out. Few is reportedly out. Turgeon is reportedly out. Smith is reportedly not being looked at. Kilkenny has stated that he believes we will have a coach hired before the Final Four, which would mean that Scott Drew and Brad Stevens are not in the running (they are both still playing). The options would appear to be getting more limited by the day.

Of course we don't know who is truly on their short list. But the short list of "name" coaches we might be after doesn't go much further than those mentioned above, plus Jamie Dixon, who most would consider a long shot.

Donovan rumors running rampant.

It seems unlikely on the surface, but the rumors of Billy Donovan being offerred the Oregon job are heating up. I suppose it can't hurt to try.

I will say that hiring Donovan fits in perfectly for what we are trying to accomplish moving forward. We are basically trying to turn our basketball program into what our football program has become.

The Nike connection has helped us tremendously in football, and Nike is even a bigger player in basketball than it is in football. Really, we've failed to capitalize on that connection in basketball like we probably should have. The ancient Mac Court was probably the biggest stumbling block in that.

Next year we will have the best facilities in the Pac-10, and certainly one of the top in the nation. Like we do with our uniform changes in football, you can expect to see us pushing our Nike connection out there for the hoops world soon too. And that begins with this coaching hire.

Billy Donovan? A young coach with 2 national titles, and a 3rd trip to the championship game? He recruits like mad, likes to play up tempo and would seriously jump start this program in a big way.

I'm very skeptical that he would take the job, but it does sound like he is seriously getting an offer. He's already the 3rd highest paid coach in college basketball, so one conclusion you can draw, whether he accepts or not is that Killkenny and Knight are willing to pay big money for a coach.

Goodbye, Ernie!

There's been a lot of parting shots taken at Ernie over the past few weeks and months out in cyberspace. And its been completely unneccessary, as his fate has been sealed for quite some time. Ernie did a good job here and should be thanked for his time on the way out the door, not berated about not living up to my personal expecations during the last years of his tenure.

I was a student, at U of O, 13 years ago when Ernie replaced Jerry Green. If you asked any Duck fan then, if we'd take the results of the last 13 seasons, we would have enthusiastically said yes.

Consistancy was a problem, and the reason that he's no longer our coach. But here's what he accomplished while here.

1 Pac-10 regular season title:
Arizona, Stanford and UCLA each had more. Cal & UW each had 1 also.

2 Pac-10 tournament titles:
Tied for the most with UCLA and Washington

2 trips to the Elite 8:
Arizona and UCLA have done better. Tied with Stanford for 3rd.

Recruited 4 McDonald's All Americans
Produced 4 1st round draft picks
Top APR in the conference and top 10 nationally

All of these, with the possible exception of the APR (which didn't even exist) would have been thought practically impossible at Oregon when I was a student.

The program he was building outgrew him, but there's no shame in that and Duck fans shouldn't take it as if personal injury had been done to them. He coached here one year too long, but he took Oregon basketball to hieghts we didn't think possible a decade ago and paved the way for us to have an even brighter future.

Ernie's last 2 seasons have been failures that cost him his job. However, the Ernie Kent era was a huge success and should be thought of as such as we move on without him.

Goodbye Ernie, and Thanks!

Following Oregon's coaching candidates in the tournament.

For those of you, like me, that don't get any work done come tournament time each year, here are some games that might be of interest to Duck fans. Some of these candidates are, obviously, much more likely than others, but these are the names that we have been rumored to be either going after, or looking at.

Game Times Pacific

Jay Wright
#2 Villanova vs. #15 Robert Morris - Thurs. - 9.30

Scott Drew
#3 Baylor vs. #14 Sam Houston - Thurs. 11:45

Randy Bennett
#10 Saint Mary's vs. #7 Richmond - Thurs. 11:50

Lon Kruger
#8 UNLV vs #9 Northern Iowa - Thurs. 4:10

Steve Alford
#3 New Mexico vs. #14 Montana - Thurs. 6:40

Jamie Dixon
#3 Pitt vs. #14 Oakland - Fri. 11:45

Mark Turgeon
#5 Texas A&M vs. #12 Utah St. - Fri. 1:45

Mark Few
#8 Gonzaga vs. #9 Florida St. - Fri. 4:10

New Pac-10 Record!

Congratz to Tajuan Porter, the Pac-10's All Time Three point leader!

I'm on the Few bandwagon.

An article in today's Register Guard talks about the AD getting ready to open up the checkbook for a coaching hire, specifically mentioning that Few might be the top target.

I hope that's the case, and that Few accepts. Its funny how things can change. A few years ago, every Duck fan was on the replace-Ernie-with-Few bandwagon and I was not sold on him. Now, many Duck fans are starting to look past Few to other targets, and I have come around to the idea.

My very top choice isn't happening. Mike Anderson. He's a great coach, but he might not even be the best fit even if there was interest (which there's not). But, I just love the way they play.

And I still believe that Few's the best fit and the perfect choice. There's a couple other guys I'd be happy with, Turgeon among those. But I think Few is really the guy we are looking for.

Basketball-wise, its somewhat of a crap shoot no matter who you get. Everybody always likes to speak in absolutes and hyperbole, but nobody really knows how a coach is going to do at any given job until they get there. So there are arguments both for and against him, on the court (as there are for every coach).

Looking at the negatives...

He's been in the tournament a ton, and never taken his team past the Sweet Sixteen. This is a legitimate concern. We are replacing Ernie, who has gone to the Elite 8 twice, and expecting to get better. Can Few get deeper into the tournament? While I do feel this is a valid concern, most of our choices out there aren't going to have coached in the Elite 8.

He took over a program in great shape and has really maintained it, rather than built it himself. I don't think this concern holds much weight for a few reasons. First, we aren't asking him to do a rebuild. Yes, we've been at, or near, the bottom of the Pac-10 for 2 seasons. But we are only 2 seasons removed from the tournament, 3 seasons removed from the Elite 8, and have a roster full of talented (though raw) players.

In fact, I think you could easily take the other side of that position and frame it as a positive. Love him or hate him, Ernie was not a bad program builder. We are in much better shape than when he took over. He built and rebuilt Elite 8 teams here twice. What ultimately got Ernie fired was being unable to maintain any kind of consistancy once there. While not taking over a program that had just reached the elite 8 the year prior, like he did with Gonzaga, this situation is much closer to that, than it is to a rebuild.

I would also consider that Ernie recent pattern with his young players has been a couple years down, followed by 2 up years. Its not altogether improbable that, even had he returned, next year isn't about to hit that up-cycle anyway. Dunigan, Humphrey, Sim, Williams, Crittle, Wiley, Armstead and Jacob will be all upperclassmen (yes, time flies). Singler and Wilson were nice contributers as freshmen and next year is not nearly as bleak as this year looked.

We can find questions, answers and arguments about all of our coaching choices similar to the ones above. Where Few really seperates himself from the rest of the field would be in longevity. If he's interested in coming to Oregon, you'd have to believe its for the long haul. He's not an NBA coach. He's a local guy. He's turned down bigger opportunities than Oregon for years at Gonzaga. This would be his last stop.

I don't think you can say that about any other hire. Many of the names on the list might bolt after only a couple good seasons. Like I said, I do think that its possible we are poised to break-out next year. How would we like a young coach to come in, get us to the tournament the following 2 years, get all kinds of praise for taking over a 9th place team and getting them to the dance (even though Ernie did that twice), and then watch him bolt for greener pastures.

I'm not a fan of the coaching carousel. We're fortunate, at Oregon to have had some long timers recently. We had Bellotti for 14 years and Ernie for 13 years. Planning to stay at Oregon is high on my list of desires out of the next coach.

So, I'm out front trumpetting for Few to be the hire.

9th place eeked out. TP, 5 threes back of the record.

Not that its any suprise, but reports have been out all weekend stated that Ernie has been fired. I'll talk more about that and my thoughts on coaching replacements in another post.

For now, the only real interesting thing left is to see if Tajuan is going to break the Pac-10 all time record for 3 pointers. Right now, he's 4 back of Salim Stoudamire's mark, needing 5 to break the record.

Getting 2 games in the Pac-10 tournament would help his chances, rather than needing to make 5 against the Coogs. And we get an immediate rematch against the last place Coogs on Wednesday. It can be tough to beat a team 3 times in a season, but if this season showed anything, its that we seem to just match up better with a few teams, going 6-0 against WSU, USC and UCLA and 1-11 against the rest of the conference.

Its hard to be excited about a rematch against the Coogs, probably for either team, and for either players or fans. And you can expect nobody to be there, considering there is only 1 play-in game this year, due to USC's postseason ban.

You'd like to see them have a little success there, though with a new coach coming in, and a new system, its hard to say that it would really matter all that much. To be honest, I just want to see Tajuan break the record. I'd expect his teamates to be looking for him often.

Well, that should do it.

We are now assured of playing in the Pac-10 tournament play-in game, against either Stanford or WSU. A win tommorow is meaningless, other than keeping us out of 10th place. As I said a few weeks ago, it was looking like WSU or us for last place and, sure enough it comes down to this final game to decide who's the ultimate loser.

The Pac-10 is horrendous this year and finishing at the bottom should all but assure that tommorow is Ernie's last game coaching at Mac Court. There may have been the slimmest of chances that he would remain, after last week's sweep in southern California, but those chances went out the window last night.

After the first half, it looked like the team might actually be capable of pulling off the win. And, to point out just how poor the conference is this year, had we won, coupled with a win tommorow( over the team that shares last place with us) might have put us as high as 5th place in the conference. So yeah, there was a chance he'd stay on, before the second half meltdown.

It should be an interesting month.

Mike Bellotti and Ernie Kent coached at Oregon for a combined 27 seasons, and both will be replaced about a year apart. It will be interesting to see where this new age for Oregon athletics takes us.

Tajuan shoots himself back in the chase

Well, it looked like a near impossibility heading into the weekend, but Tajuan is right back in the chase for the all time Pac-10 3 point mark. His 7 threes today puts him at 334, 8 behind Salim Stoudamire, with a minimum of 3 games to play. Still, he needs to shoot it better than he has most of conference play, but 2 or 3 per game is at least in reach.

Some more interesting thoughts and numbers:

The win puts the Ducks back at .500 for the season at 14-14. 1 of only 6 Pac-10 teams that are .500 or better in this down season.

The Ducks have swept 2 road trips. The only Pac-10 team to do so.

The Ducks have won 4 road games total. Only ASU has done better, with 5 road wins. No matter what happens in our final 2, we can't finish with a better home record than road record.

Last place is much less of a forgone conclusion after this weekend. We will still be tied for last (pending the outcomes of OSU@USC and UW@WSU), but the bottom half teams are now all within a game of each other. Both OSU and WSU have the same number of wins as us. Whichever of them lose will be tied at the bottom. And of course, OSU/WSU/Oregon all play next week which will likely settle last place.


The loser of Arizona/Stanford (as I type this a 2 point game in the second half) will also have only 7 wins after this weekend. Stanford has only Cal left, and Arizona has the SoCal schools at home.

There could be a big log-jam at the bottom of the conference after next week, delving into tiebreakers to decide who plays in the play-in games.

Last win at USC was 2006

Not much of a meaningfull game for either team, and it was a very ugly game. Typical for USC this year, they've been playing the uglyiest, lowest scoring games in the conference all year.

But it was nice to get a win, and a road win at that. We now have 3 road wins to only 2 home wins and at least have managed to break a couple strings of losses. We hadn't won at USC since 2006. Our win at Washington earlier was the first since 2002.

If you're wondering, we haven't won at UCLA since 2003. UCLA's a bit banged up, and not very good to begin with, so who knows? maybe they'll be another streak broken tommorow.

We are closing with games against the 4 teams we beat in the first half of the season, so perhaps we simply match up better with these teams.

There are some really bad overall records in the Pac-10 this year. Only 5 teams with winning records at this point

UCLA 13-14
Arizona 13-14
Stanford 13-15
Oregon State 12-15
Oregon 13-14

1 or 2 of these teams might get to .500. But, maybe not.

Washington State is the only shot at a better than last place finish.

In a year which the Pac-10 is as bad, if not the worst, that its ever been we are solidifying ourselves at the bottom. Alone in last place after last night's performance, the last chance we have at "rising" out of the cellar is if Washington State can join us there. We got the win at their place, and a half game ahead of us, they look to be the only team we have a chance to catch in the closing weeks of the season.

A win or two from them will set them apart, even if we do manage to beat them head to head, but they've been nearly as bad as us lately, losing 6 of their last 7 games, mostly double digit blowouts.

So, if you're rooting for a 9th place finish, root against the Coogs.

We couldn't do much to beat the 9th place team at home last night, so it might be a futile hope anyway.

Swept by our last three.

The start to the second half of conference play has gone as bad as possible. We are playing worse now than we were to start conference play and the last 3 teams to paste us have now swept the season series against us.

With Stanford and Cal coming to Mac Court this week, it will be interesting to see how much, or how little, this team cares about things anymore. Stanford shares the Pac-10 basement with us and is the "easiest" game left on our schedule. Lose that one and an 0-fer second half is a real possibility.

Tajuan did move into 2nd place on the Pac-10 career 3 point leaders list, for what it's worth. With him needing 18 more and probably only 7 games left, first place is becoming unlikely.

Talk about vastly different expectations.

You've got to love quotes like this one, from the Oregonian, about Oregon and Oregon State.

"The Beavers are a solid, competitive program right now that just swept the Ducks, who are floundering."

OSU is right with us, at 4-6 in the Pac-10, with an even worse overall record at 10-12. OSU's ability to beat Oregon head to head doesn't make them either solid or competitive right now. They've lost 4 of their last 6 games, are just 1 month removed from a 50+ point beating at the hands of Seattle U (in their first season of division 1 basketball), and now half of their Pac-10 win total is over a hapless Oregon team.

The Oregonian article is titled, "There's a clear difference between Oregon State and Oregon", and it goes on to detail why OSU is superior and headed in the right direction.

The title of the article is apt, though not for the "analysis" given inside it. There is a clear difference and that difference is expectations. Because OSU isn't better than Oregon right now, despite the result on the court. Which is not to say that Oregon is any better than them this year either. Oregon isn't better than Washington, Washington State, UCLA or USC either, despite beating those 4 teams. Both Oregon teams are among the most pathetic teams in a pathetic league. OSU has scoreboard.

OSU somehow got worse from last year, despite losing very little from their team, and fans and writers are happy with it. Oregon is likely going to fire the coach after this poor season. The difference between the 2 is that OSU is happy to be among the pathetic, while Oregon won't stand for it long.

So, I hope to continue to see articles lambasting the Ducks for their failure and praising the Beavers for their failure, because that does highlight the difference between the two programs.

Huge Shot Humphrey

The Rockets, Lakers and Spurs know Robert Horry as "Big Shot Bob". Late in his career he barely played in the regular season, didn't do a lot even when he did play, except make game changing 3 pointers late in games. So, perhaps we ought to call Matt, "Huge Shot Humphrey".

In Matt Humphrey's short career, he's spent a lot of time injured, and had some up and down performances. He hasn't scored all that much, but his ratio of big shots to total points is insanely high. Against UCLA he took over in the final minutes and overtime. And last night, with USC closing the gap in the second half, Matt hit back to back threes to stretch our lead out to 8.

If you remember last season, he also hit game tying, go ahead, and final dagger, shots in both of our 2 conference wins against Oregon State and Stanford.

Its really too bad about his injury, because I think he can become a great player for us. And he's shown the ability to step up in the clutch, which is simply something you often can't teach or develop. You've either got it, or you don't.

Other than some passing issues, we played well yesterday. We were very sloppy passing the ball, which was extremely frustrating. We should have put them away many times, but we just handed them the ball multiple times for wide open break away buckets. One on none fast breaks don't happen usually but once a game, or so. Yesterday, USC got about 5 of them on terrible decisions and lazy passes (from both the pass itself, and the recipient not coming to the ball).

Jacob has quietly been coming on of late, with a peak yesterday of 19 points, leading in scoring. Armstead really looks for Jacob and gets him some easy buckets down low. You can see how comfortable they are together and Jacob's got some ability in the post. He's not the same presence than Dunigan is, especially defensively or on the boards. His post game is different, as he isn't able to go up over defenders, but he can he hit the short jumpers that aren't a part of Mike's arsenal yet.

4-5, after the first half of conference play, is still a big disappointment. The Pac-10 is very down this year. After a 2-0 start, on the road, we should have been no worse than 6-3 with any kind of halfway decent play. That 5 game stretch killed any realistic chance of post season play, short of winning the Pac-10 tournament.

8 Pac-10 teams have 4 or 5 conference wins (and losses), with only Cal and Oregon State bucking the trend, in first and last place respectively. It looks like there's going to be a bunch of teams with 8-10 conference wins. The Pac-10 tournament is going to be brutal, this year, with everybody fighting for a shot at the tournament. And you can't count count, almost, anybody out of winning it.

Humphrey and Singler take over in overtime.

Its amazing how much better we look when we shoot the ball alright. With nobody being capable of making a shot, we had a horrid 5 game losing streak. A streak in which we weren't even competative. Last night we got our shooting percentage over 40% and, more importantly, our 3 point percentage was over 40% as well.

Porter and Humphrey both had good shooting nights from long range, and Wilson hit some nice jumpers as well. With that effort, Tajuan moves into 3rd place on the All Time 3 Point list for the Pac-10. In early January, he looked like a lock to take the top spot, but the last 5 games have made it difficult for him to get there. He'll take over 2nd place without question. Maybe as soon as tomorrow (he's only 2 3 pointers back of 2nd place), but he needs to average neraly 3 per game to take the lead, unless we make a deep run in the Pac-10 tournament and/or make some other tournament. Those 2 things both look like longshots at this point.

It was great to see Matt Humphrey get back on track. He's had a rough year, with the early injury, he had barely played, but he was the key for us offensively down the stretch. UCLA really keyed in on Tajuan in the closing minutes and overtime. They weren't going to let him beat us, and we needed someone else to step up and knock down shots. Matt hit them all.

Singler, who had been quiet all game, came up with a couple huge plays down the stretch as well. In fact, Humphrey and Singler scored all of our overtime points, which is encouraging for the future, as we need to find people with the confidence to knock down shots when it matters for us.

Jamil Wilson hit the mid range jumper effectively last night, which is a shot he can get off any time he wants, with his size and jumping ability.

Dunigan did well on the boards, and blocked some shots, last night. But he cramped up late, and didn't play down the stretch for us. It really hurt us, as we had almost put the game away, but UCLA was able to clean up on the offensive glass to come back and send it to overtime. Jacob contributed pretty well offensively in his place, though doesn't have the size to give us what Dunigan does, on defense and the boards.

Armstead had an incredible 12 assists, and did well running the team, though his shot was off.

At least one Pac-10 team isn't going to leave with a win on their final trip to Mac Court. It looked like all of them would be, the way we were playing before. Lets hope we send some more home disapointed, starting with the Trojans tomorrow night.

USC slows it down the most of any team in the conference but, unlike UCLA, they are very athletic inside as well. I was shocked that they lost to OSU last night, but that isn't going to make their game with us any easier. Like last night, we'll need some players to knock down outside shots, against their zone. We'll need to step up down the stretch, if its close, and make shots when they matter.

Hopefully Dunigan will be fully recovered from his cramps. Since its a hydration issue, it can sometimes be hard to completely fix in a day. But we'll need him at his best to attack USC down low.

Bellotti's recent comments regarding Kent

If you have been following anything other than the, football, theft situation you probably read Bob Clark's interveiew with Mike Bellotti in the Register Guard. He doesn't say a whole lot, but it certainly sounds a bit like he's giving Kent more leeway than the fans(that want him gone) are willing to give.

Some would argue that we've seen enough already that he should be fired mid-season, and most would argue that we've seen enough that he shouldn't be back next year regardless. Bellotti's comments would lead you to believe that Kent can retain his job if the team shows a certain level of improvement from here on out. What that level of improvement is, or how likely that is, is completely unkown.

This situation is on Kilkenny, in my opinion. Bringing Ernie back for one more season was a huge blunder last year on many levels. If Kilkenny gave him an ultimatum, or if he felt that he needed to show a certain amount of improvement, he had no way of enforcing that once he left. And to leave a first year AD in this situation is simply a bad idea.

I've heard some people say Ernie should just resign, but that's nonsense. While the problems on the court all fall on Ernie's head, he has no obligation to remove himself from the position. This is all on the A.D. Ernie has a million dollar buyout in his contract. If we want to get rid of him, we owe him that money. "Saving face" is not worth a million dollars, and the buyout is very reasonable in the coaching world.

If a couple late season wins means that Ernie stays on another year, it would be a big mistake and I will criticize Bellotti for it. However, Kilkenny is still to blame, in my opinion because a first year AD just should not have been left with this siutation. Hopefully Bellotti will get it right.

Atomic Meltdown!

The fall from opening weekend to today has been nothing short of epic. Today we are the worst team, in the worst major conference, in the country.

We can't shoot and can't defend. We miss layups. We miss dunks. We miss open jumpers. There's not much of anything we do well anymore. While today's game was not televised, its hard to imagine we keep getting beaten this badly while giving full effort. Has the team completely quit on the season? You'd have to think so at this point.

Is there still time to correct things? Not really anymore. I'll give it until the halfway mark(which will be reached after our home stand next weekend) before I give them a proper obituary, but this season is dead as can be.

Our shooting has been nothing short of a miracle these last few weeks. Amazing that you can go so long without being able to throw it in the ocean, but nobody can hit an open shot anymore.

Garrett Sim was shooting 48% from 3 heading into Pac-10 play. Since New Year's Day, he's 2-18 from 3.

Teondre Williams is 8-26 since the Washington road trip and has not made a 3. Made worse is the fact that it includes quite a few missed dunks and layups.

I have no idea why Longmire has taken upon himself to so aggressively shoot the ball. That's never been his game. He was 0-9 against Cal. 2-15 for the weekend.

EJ Sinlger hasn't hit a 3 since Washington State.

Armstead was 2-4 from 3 against Arizona. In the other 4 games on this losing steak, he's 0-8.

Porter is 10-32 from 3 during this stretch.

We can barely crack 30% shooting, as a team, and since we allow opponents to shoot 48%, 51%, 49% and 52% over the last 4 games, it's pretty clear what the result is going to be night in and night out. The epic failure we saw this weekend.

Going out on the road certainly wasn't the cure for the dreadful homestand we just went through. 2-0 to 2-5, with the first 2 on the road might be a feat that hasn't been accomplished before.

Open up the checkbook for Few

Going on the assumption that Ernie Kent is gone at the end of this season, Mark Few is the logical choice for a replacement. Rumor has it that his asking price was way more than what we were willing to pay, when Kilkenny went to him last year, but if money is going to be an object in hiring a coach, then you've made a big mistake by building a 200 million dollar arena. I'm not sure if Few takes the job, but if you want to fill the arena right away you're going to have to pay big money for a coach.

If you want to hire a lesser known guy, for less money, you aren't going to bring back all the fans that have bailed on the team right now. Sure, you'll get some back. There are fans that just want anyone but Ernie at the helm. But you won't get enough to fill your new arena unless the hire itself is exciting. Just being "not Ernie" isn't good enough to be exciting.

If you want Matt Court filled to the brim, you give Few whatever he wants, no matter how much more than you were planning to spend it is. He's worth the money.

• He's a big enough name to get fans interested.
  
• He's got local ties which is important to some people (i.e. gets more people excited).
  He's a big enough name, and well known enough, to make it more likely that the current players stay.
  
• He runs an umtempo system:
  
  • Hiring an uptempo coach is important. We still have a young team and in any coaching change, players transferring is a concern. These players came to Oregon in part because they wanted to play in an open court game. Their skill sets are geared to it, and that's what they want to do. You're less likely to lose players if you get an open court coach. Also, its another thing that just gets more people excited to come watch.
  
  
  
  

None of this has even dealt with how good of a coach Few is, or how much success I would expect him to have here. Because, that's just impossible to know with any coach. I'm not even 100% sold that Few makes the jump from mid-major to major coach smoothly (his predecessor didn't). Its entirely possible that he's just the right fit for Gonzaga. But he's the coach that makes sense for Oregon. Even when we were doing well recently, Ernie was on the hot seat with many fans. Even during that last Elite 8 run. And that's the biggest problem with keeping Ernie here any more. It doesn't even necessarily matter what his results are, there are just a lot of fans that are done with him...period.

Based on his local ties, his success in the Northwest, and simply the mentality of the fanbase, Few is a guy who will have all the support he needs and more. He'll have a longer leash than other coaches, be given more leeway. Yes, without success, that support will run dry at some point, but its important to have it to begin with. And he'll have it in spades.

So you make a run at Few, no matter what it costs you.

The alternatives aren't too exciting.

There's Mike Dunlap, who is a very well respected guy in coaching circles. But, he hasn't come in and worked miracles here yet. It very well may not be his fault at all, as there's no way to know how much or little impact he's been allowed to have. However, I just can't imagine that, after letting go of Ernie you would hire somebody from his staff. No matter how brief a period of time that person was on his staff. Dunlap may be a great coach, but that's certainly not a way to get anybody excited. And generating excitement is the #1 job of the new hire, from the AD's perspective.

We'll hear Reveno's name tossed out there(from University of Portland). Everybody was high on him earlier this year, when they notched a few "big" upsets. But they've crashed and burned since, and their wins may not have been as great as they looked in the first place. A lot of credit was given to them for pasting UCLA, but everyone's been doing that these days. Really, we had every opportunity to win that game at UP earlier in the year. And that was during our first stretch of poor basketball, with Dunigan out with injury. Since UP's good start, they've been blown out by 20 to Idaho, blown out by 40 by Washington and they've lost a lot of other games. They've really fallen off the map and now have the same record that we do. Raveno's not a known name, nationally. Barely even regionally, and not going to bring excitement enough to open a new arena.

We'll hear Bennett and Grier's name get tossed out there (from Saint Mary's and San Diego). 2 guys that have done ok in the WCC, just squeaking into the tournament one year each. Neither has been able to threaten Gonzaga in the league. San Diego's really not done much the last couple years (they are 8-11 right now), and do we really want to replace a Saint Mary's coach with another Saint Mary's coach?

I'd say, especially depending on how the Seattle U game at Washington goes, Cameron Dollar's name might be thrown out there. But, he's in his first year as a coach, and aside from the beat down they put on OSU, Seattle hasn't done a whole lot. He could be a great recruiter though, and we'd probably be better able to dip into the state of Washington for recruits, while at the same time weaken UW's recruiting.

That's far from a complete list of options and I'm not saying that an unknown somewhere, or an up and comer, can't come in a get the job done. On the court somebody unknown very well might be "better" than Few. But, the goal of this hire is going to be getting butts in seats, immediately. Some assistant somewhere, or some unknown, might be the next John Wooden, but it won't matter a bit if Matt Court opens with 2000 fans in the place.

After you've already invested 200 something million dollars is not the time to be cheap about the hire.

Burn in the fires of Hades, Basketball tickets!

Here's eDuck's TAS28's response to the last 2 games.




A harsh response? Perhaps, but then I was one of the people who voted "burn them" in his poll.

Operation Homecourt Giveback complete.

Well, that was quick. Win 2 on the road. Give 2 back at home immediately. That's a quick way to turn things around 360 degrees, right back where you started.

Like I mentioned in my preview, shooting was a key. On both ends of the court. We couldn't knock down a shot to save our lives. No starter scored more than 7 points. As a team we shot 37%, and 4-14 from 3. ASU had 2 players make as many 3's as our entire team did. Abbot was 4-7 and Kuksiks was 4-6.

The team gave up halfway through the first half when we were down 15 points or so. You could visibly see them sag, and they were just going through the motions from that point on. That's a very bad sign of things to come.

A loss to Arizona will be the final nail in the coffin for this team and, right now, I would probably predict it to happen. Its tough to follow a quitting act with a good performance. Once you quit one time, it just becomes easier and easier to quit again, and harder and harder to put out the effort.

ASU is a strange team. They play that slow down zone on D, and they bomb away from deep on Offense. We gave them looks from 3 early, that killed us, and its a stupid way to defend them. They don't want to take 2 pointers. McMillan drove the ball into the middle repeadetly and we would collapse and allow him to kick it out. That's a poor strategy against that team. They don't do well shooting inside the 3 point line and McMillan, in particular, isn't looking to. Besides, on most of these plays Dunigan had the middle pretty well covered. There's no reason for perimeter defenders to collapse against ASU.

Honestly, that's a problem with our defense in general. We have to have more faith from the coaches, and the other players, that Dunigan is going to block shots in the paint. And Dunigan's got to go out and do it. Right now, when one of our perimeter defenders is beat, we see one of the following happen.

A) We'll reach, or grab, from behind. When one of our guards is beat, they'll often just grab their man and give the foul instead of a drive.

B) Other perimeter defenders will collapse into the paint to try and give help.

There's just no need for either of those to happen. Our players aren't showing the faith in Dunigan to go and alter shots in the paint, despite the fact that he's proven to be capable of doing so. Too many times this year, other players have given up stupid fouls when Dunigan was right there to contest the shot anyway. In fact, at the end of the OSU game, Longmire doing just that may have cost us the game. After we cut it to 3 points with 57 seconds left, OSU missed the shot on their following possession. We failed to rebound and Brandt, for OSU got the ball in the paint. Dunigan was right in front of him, and he took the ball right up into Dunigan for what would have been an easy cap, but Longmire fouled him hard to prevent him from making the attempt. Simply unacceptable.

On defense, we need to pressure players better on the perimeter. We either don't do it at all, or do stupid things after we get beat. You just need to pressure, and if you get beat, you need to have faith that your big guys will be there to alter shots. That might not always be what you want to do against teams that can't shoot from outside, like Washington or UCLA, but especially against a team like ASU you have to. They don't even want to take 2 pointers.

Arizona can be hit or miss from deep, much like us. Like us, you never know if Arizona is going to show up to play or not, or if they'll be able to score or not, or if they'll play defense or not. But, based on a somewhat better performance, losing closely at OSU, I'd give them the edge in tomorrow's game.

But its truly do or die time for Oregon. The first 2 games gave us an opportunity. The last 2 games would have allowed us to build on that opportunity. Now we're back to square 1, and this is our first "must-win" game. We have won a must-win in quite some time, since we swept the Arizona home stand to make the tournament in 2008.

Better warm up those wrists this week.

Another game, another zone defense. ASU's zone defense doesn't apply the same kind of pressure on the perimeter that OSU's 1-3-1 does. Against OSU, our biggest problem was getting the ball out of double-teams high on the perimeter. With Armstead rendered ineffective by this, we couldn't rely on his penetration, which could have devastated that zone. With so much of the focus on the perimeter, once you break it down, that defense really breaks down. We couldn't, and didn't break it down.

ASU's defense packs things in really tight and clogs up the middle. They do a great job of taking away dribble penetration and collapsing on the ball anytime it goes into the middle. They don't apply pressure, like OSU does, on ball handlers bringing the ball up. This should, at least, allow us to keep Armstead running the point and freeing up TP to play off ball more.

The problem is that it takes away a lot of what Armstead likes to do, which is breaking down defenders and drive down the lane to create opportunities and score.

Our teams have always struggled against teams that primarily run zone defenses. And yes, that's somewhat damning of coach Kent. In fairness to him, there are plenty of really good coaches out there that struggle with the same thing, including Ben Howland. If you don't run a zone as your primary D, its tough to replicate the look that those teams give you in practice. That's why you see some "lesser talented" programs run zone and pull off upsets. It can level the playing field between talent. I'm not getting into the Kent debate here right now, just feel its fair to point out both sides.

Many Duck fans don't like seeing us just "jack up threes", but the reality is that against ASU we are going to have to hit some. Obviously we want them to be good shots, but those are going to be the best looks ASU is going to give up.

If Armstead can break down a player on the exterior of the zone, the ASU defense will collapse into the paint. They'll be leaving at least one player open on the perimeter for an uncontested 3 in this situation. You have to make them pay for playing defense this way. You have to knock down your open looks. One way we can actually get into easy trouble in this game is to force things into the middle too much. If we can get a quick pass over the top down to Dunigan, we should take it. But, over penetrating against this defense can make scoring difficult. There are simply too many bodies inside the paint when the ball goes down there.

If Dunigan can get shots up quickly over, and around, Boetang we should take it. But he's going to have to pass out of the post as well, which he hasn't yet shown much (and hasn't yet been neccessary).

If Armstead can be really effective driving the ball, he can find the gaps in the zone which will make more defenders commit to him than they want to. If we can do that, you'll see 2 players left wide open on the perimeter. But ASU knows their system really well, and I don't think we can rely on that.

Any way we go (either with ball movement, Armstead breaking down the defense, or passes inside to Dunigan), we are going to need to knock down open 3's. Sim can't have another 0-5 night. Singler can't pass up the open looks he's getting. Wilson and Williams are going to have to knock down their looks as well.

The OSU loss was a disaster, and if there is going to be any hope of rebounding from it, we can't afford to lose this game. You can't take 2 on the road, and then give them back in your very next 2 games and expect to do anything good. And it probably will hinge on how well we shoot the 3 ball.

A loss to a sub-200 RPI team is a quick way to ruin things.

Absolutely devastating loss to the Beavers tonight. Forget the implications of playing a rival that hadn't won on your floor in 17 years, or anything like that. It was simply a pathetic performance for a team that had put itself in great position on the opening weekend to lose to a team that bad.

The first 5 possessions said it all, with 5 turnovers. Did the team just not show up to play? Sadly, I don't even think that was the case. I don't think it was a case of overlooking OSU. It wasn't lazy passes, or lethargic play, it was simply poor play.


Armstead, after seemingly taking control of the point guard position, looked like he simply could never figure out how to get a pass around a double team. Repeatedly, we just handed OSU the ball at midcourt going the other way.

Tajuan, after a poor first half, played well in the second half. He played the role of facilitator by neccessity more than anything, but he made some nice drives and passes, and hit a couple shots at least. Nobody else hit shots. I wish I could say it was because of OSU, but we missed lay-ins, wide open shots, free throws, you name it. Tajuan's about the only player I could find anything positive to say about.

In the end, OSU was bad enough that we still even had plenty of chances to get the win. But nobody could make a key bucket. We couldn't get defensive rebounds when we needed them. Dunigan got into early foul trouble and then refused to play defense. Can't follow up a week like he had last week with an effort like tonight. He simply let play after play go for layup without contesting them.

I'm not sure why Longmire got so many minutes tonight. There just isn't anything that he gives us that other players, with better offensive skills, can't give. He's athletic, and there's a role for him on this team, but Wilson, Singler, Williams and Sim all need to be on the floor more. He's got the Jordan Kent syndrome, where we might as well have 4 players on the floor when we're on offense. If the defense doesn't come within 10 feet of you when you've got the ball at the 3 point line you have to make them pay, and he simply can't.

Singler really struggled with the zone tonight as well. And he got into some foul trouble. Not a good outing by him, but both he and Wilson gave a better showing than most of our "veterans".

OSU is a sub-200 RPI team. If you were hoping to have a shot at making the tournament this year, you can't lose at home to them. Sadly, the more important lesson is that, if you are capable of having that kind of season you probably aren't bad enough to lose this game at home in the first place. What was looking like a great opportunity home-stand against the Arizona schools now becomes 2 must-win games.

Up first is ASU, and I'll have a preview of that as the week progresses, but judging by the way we played against the OSU zone defense tonight, that ASU zone should give us even a lot more trouble.

Cougs still crying.

Well, WSU fans are still whining about their loss a week ago. To be fair, I would have been pissed too if we lost a game that way. I wouldn't have called the technical if I was a ref.

But, I'm not a ref. And, while Coug fans have been right in the sense that I've seen celebrations before without a T being called, the WSU bench and fans did go overboard for the celebration as well. Usually its just the bench guys jumping a few feet onto the court. WSU had players nearly out to midcourt, slapping towels at Casto like they were in the locker room. No, it probably should have been a warning, not a tech, but it was excessive.

And, if Oregon would have lost that game, I would have been pissed about the homer job the refs gave us in the first place. The game wouldn't have gotten to overtime without that little bit of home cooking. We had the game well in hand, but the refs were giving Klay Thompson ridiculous star treatment, as if he were Michael Jordan. Calling a lot of incidental contact, and non-contact, that they weren't calling on the other end. EJ Singler drives down the lane and hits a bucket that gets waved off on a charge call, and Klay Thompson then charges into EJ on the other end, but goes to the Free Throw line and fouls EJ out. Mike Dunigan gets held by Casto, allowing WSU to get an offensive board and putback, and Mike gets called for Casto bumping into his knee on the other end. WSU scored only 1 field goal over about the final 8 minutes of regulation. The rest was ref aided points from the stripe.

42 Free Throw attempts for WSU to 16 for Oregon, and the Cougs complain about the one call that didn't go their way.

As I said, I'd be mad about that call too, but one call doesn't decide a game. A bunch of calls going in the favor of one team is much more damaging.

But, I decided to write this, not to debate the validity of the call, but to highlight something obvious that the crying Cougs keep failing to mention. I'll use Seattle P-I Coug writer, Jim Moore, as my example from his latest blog.

That put the Cougs in front 80-78. With .3 remaining, Oregon could not realistically pull off a game-tying or game-winning shot. The only thing you can do with one-third of a second left is "re-direct" or tip the ball in. And with the Ducks inbounding 94 feet from their basket, a WSU victory was more than likely assured.

I keep hearing this argument from the Coogs. That the game was literally over, because we couldn't do anything from full court with that little time. How is it that this keeps getting brought up without mentioning that the following play actually already happened earlier in this very same game.




Are the odds that we pull that off again in the game fairly low? Sure. The Cougs would definitely put people back there to worry about that play happening again. But then again, they could also easily foul us in the act of trying if they are agressive in their defense of it.

Scoring with only 3 tenths of a second left puts the odds highly in your favor, but if you are going to say that it was "over", at least have the decency to mention that you were burned, from 94 feet, in that very same game.

Oregon all alone in 1st place.

I think what we've seen these first few games is a lot of what we are going to be seeing all year long. A lot of close games that go down to the final minutes. For that reason, our road sweep of the Washington schools might end up being even a bigger deal than it seems right now, when all is said and done. There just aren't any real good teams in the league, and nobody seems capable of distancing themselves.

There's no question that our first 2 games were the most impressive 2 games played to start Pac-10 play for any school. That doesn't mean that we will keep it up. I'm optimistic though, for a couple reasons.

1. Guard play

College basketball is always all about guard play. With Malcom Armstead and Tajuan Porter in the backcourt, we are going to have a good shot in games that come down to the final minutes. As I stated above, I think that's going to happen a lot in the Pac-10 this year. We saw Maclom's ability to break down the defense and get into the lane against WSU and Washington. He's also an excellent ball handler and he shouldn't turn it over much in late game situations.

When you add to that Tajuan, who is also very quick, and the most dangerous player in the Pac-10 from deep, that's a backcourt that is capable of making opponents play near flawless ball down the stretch to win. Tajuan is also improved with his ball handling, and penetrating ability this year. That's in part his own hard work and improvement and part the fact that when teams have to key on another player (in this case Armstead) Tajuan has always been at his best.

2. Mike Dunigan

This is still a bit of the wildcard. He's been spectacular for 3 straight games, and really very good for 5 straight. I would hope it keeps up, and I believe it will. Probably not often at the level he was this past week, but still at a pretty high level, with some steps backward here and there.

But, when you take our guard play, and add a shot altering presence in the middle, all of a sudden we don't only have the ability to get good shots in crunch time, but we have the ability to make opponent's shots more difficult.

Mike's play is going to be a big key for us in the Pac-10. The Mike Dunigan that played last week is the conference's best post player, and its not even close.


We have an opportunity here most of us didn't think possible a few short weeks ago. We stand alone in first place, with a very winnable game on Sunday against OSU. Not only is it winnable, but thanks to their epic failure last night, its a game we really can't afford to lose. Fortunately, what looked to be a possible advantage with a tune-up game, turned into a nightmare for OSU. And there is simply no way that a game like that helps you, other than possibly to make your opponent overlook you. Considering some of our own failures, I would be suprised if these Ducks overlook the Beavers.

If we beat OSU, we have a critical home stand against the Arizona schools. Might we be 5-0 in a little more than 2 weeks from now? Even 4-1 would put us in great shape.

VIDEO: Dunigan shortchanged a spot in the record books

Mike Dunigan was named Pac-10 player of the week this week.

Its the first time Mike's got that honor but, if he keeps playing like he has been for the past couple weeks, it won't be the last. If he plays like this, he's the best post player in the conference, and its not even close.

The Pac-10 honor includes his career high game of 26 against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, giving him a 3 game average of 22.7 points, 10.3 boards and 2.7 blocks. He shot 25-35 from the floor (71.4%) and 18-25 from the free throw line for a solid 72%.

He got shortchanged a block in the WSU game, which is actually a mildly big deal (to me at least). Yes, I'm obsessive enough to watch the game again just to keep track. They credit him with 5 blocks against the Cougs, but he had 6. And why its a "mild big deal" is that 5 blocks ties him for the 2nd best single game blocked shot performance in Oregon history. #1 is Blair Rasmussen with 8 blocks in 1984. There have been seven 5 block performances, for the #2 spot. Dunigan is now in that group, though he really should be all alone in 2nd with 6 blocks.

Check out the video evidence, and count for yourself (My apologies for the poor video quality. We can all thank the "sweet deal" with comcast for my inability get quality video when the games aren't shown on a national network).


He also altered a ton of shots this weekend, becoming a real presence inside that we just haven't had for a very, very long time. There were a couple of airballs thrown up from less than 5 feet away from the basket, as Cougs panicked when Dunigan came over to help. He, flat out, abused Casto all night long. 5 of his 6 blocks were on Casto, who ended up shooting 5-14 from the floor. Remember, last year Casto earned Pac-10 All Freshman team honors over Mike. Despite our pitiful performance, that was an insult and an injustice for the coaches to vote Casto over Mike. Dunigan had better numbers than Casto all around, last year, even if you are just looking at Pac-10 play. Casto's playing time increased as the year went on and Dunigan's fell, but Dunigan maintained better numbers throughout.

But, its water under the bridge, and Thursday's game was a pretty clear message about who the better player is right now.

Welcome to my Duck Hoops Blog.

Welcome to my Duck Hoop blog. I've been pretty active around the sports message board world for about a decade, or so, as JayDuck or JayDuck12. I'm a Duck fan (obviously), but those on eDuck probably know me to be a bit more vocal when it comes to hoops than Football. I love both sports, but basketball has always been my first love. I'm 34, and have played competitively, and followed, basketball my whole life.

I may mention football here from time to time, but I'll mostly be keeping to hoops with my blog. I have my opinions on football, but I'll probably just keep most of those on the message boards.

I work on the web, and do some freelance graphic design/video editing/animation work, so I'll sometimes create videos, or other images, of the Ducks or spoofs of our rivals. You may have seen my Total Eclipse of the Heart, Husky video that I made a few years ago (back when the youtube quality really was poor) and that I break out every year for that football game. I've put up some videos of our recruits in the past as well, and have a ton of animated .gifs I've made of Duck plays. I wanted to get this blog up, in part to have a place to keep my web images and videos organized and linked to. Sometimes I'll create an animation, or photoshop a rival coach, upload it somewhere and then forget where it is.

Everybody and their mommas (and her "friend's friends") seem to have Duck football blogs these days, but Duck Basketball has recently been the redheaded stepchild of the major Oregon sports, so I thought I'd give my sports passion a little love.

I went to the Rose Bowl this weekend and I had a great time. We got there early and tailgated all day, saw a bunch of friends and watched a frustrating and mildly dissapointing game that couldn't manage to break my spirit. While there's something very special about college football, when it ends I'm always reminded of why I love hoops so much. March Madness! Win or lose that Rose Bowl, its always a kind of an empty way to finish out the season. If you aren't playing in the title game it really doesn't matter all that much. Its not "win and advance, lose and go home", its "win and go home, lose and go home". I wanted to win and was disappointed when we lost, so I put that game immediately behind me. But if We would have won, I'd have talked about the game for a few days, and then put it behind me anyway. We'll be a little lower in the polls to end the year, and start next year, but in the end its just a game with nothing much riding on it. A very anticlimactic end to a pretty incredible regular season.

The big dance is everything that a post season should be. Bar none the most exciting post season in all of sports (IMO). No 7 game series', just 64(65) teams all going at it until a champion is crowned. I literally get no work done on those days, watching any game I can whether or not Oregon is there.

So in true Ernie Kent fashion, he pulled a rabbit out of his hat just when his back was against the wall. Like most Duck fans this year, I've been reluctant to jump feet first into the pool on the Duck bandwagon. After last season, and the non-conference there was little reason for optimism. But, just when I need a pick me up, with an incredible football season ending with an anticlimactic thud into a pile of excrement, we open conference play with a road sweep of the Washington schools. Outstanding!

I still think its wise to temper the enthusiasm until we see more for a few weeks here. I've seen the latest bracketology has us in the tournament as a 12 seed, facing Gonzaga in Spokane(wouldn't that be interesting?), but the fact that its even a consideration at this point is a minor miracle and just what I needed this weekend.

Armstead is playing the role we recruited him for, Dunigan seems to be "getting it", and TP is finally healthy. It might be worth noting that we didn't have Dunigan and TP playing together in any of our losses this year, because of injuries.

If those 3 can play together like they did the opening weekend of conference play, the sky's the limit for this team. I still expect setbacks, but it sure feels a lot better than it did before Christmas.

We are at the top of the standings, and every other team is looking up at us, doubly so because our 2 wins came on the road and on what should have been the toughest road trip.

So... Go Ducks, and I hope my blog adds something of value for the Duck Hoop community.