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.