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.