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.