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.