With the first half on the Pacific-10 Conference schedule over, Oregon sits in eighth place with a 4-5 record in the conference. Although things haven’t gone the way the Ducks wanted, they’re not even close to panicking just yet.
They’ve competed with every single team in the conference, managing to lose only in the final few minutes in most losses and put away Oregon State late in the second half in Saturday’s game, thanks to two separate resurgences that have been absent for the most part this season.
After beating the Beavers, Ernie Kent stressed the importance of playing better defense in the Ducks’ remaining games. If it improves, as Kent says, so will Oregon’s record the second half.
He cited last year’s defensive mindset on the team’s second-half turnaround and he hopes to see similar results in Oregon’s upcoming games. The players echoed that idea, saying that they beat Oregon State once they started making defensive stops that enabled them to start on their game-breaking run.
The Ducks’ defensive intensity is certainly one factor that encourages hopes of getting the Ducks back into the NCAA Tournament. The other, though, may be more important, at least for the team’s psyche and it showed up late against the Beavers too.
“A big difference in this ballgame obviously was Tajuan Porter getting back on his game,” Kent said. “He’s spent a lot of time the last few days shooting the basketball in the evening and if he can stay the course he’s going to be a big difference for us coming down the stretch.”
That’s an understatement, at best, for Kent. As soon as Porter started making his threes, and making smart decisions as the point guard, the Ducks started to pull away from the Beavers thanks to what people called “backbreaking” “daggers”.
It’s pretty obvious that the Ducks’ defense and Porter’s shooting aren’t mutually exclusive. Both feed off each other as with each stop Oregon makes, Porter’s three becomes that much more devastating.
“That’s what he does,” Bryce Taylor said. “All we need is for everybody to step up and do what they do best and for Tajuan that’s coming up in the clutch and knocking down those tough shots. We feel like it’s imperative for everybody to know their role and do it with confidence.”
Those two facets are what tore down the NCAA Tournament teams the Ducks faced last year and it’s the part of Oregon’s game that’s been sorely lacking thus far this year.
Granted, it took place against the Beavers, a team that every Pac-10 team can look to and chalk up a win, but from here on out, we’ll turn to this game to mark the point in time when the Ducks were finally able to come together and change the direction of their season.
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