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.