With last week’s surprising retirement of Arizona men’s basketball coach Lute Olson, Oregon head coach Ernie Kent is now the longest-tenured coach in the Pacific-10 Conference at the same school, experience that will be tested this year as he coaches what is arguably his youngest team at Oregon.
Being the new dean of the conference doesn’t mean so much, Kent said, when you survey the rest of the league’s coaches’ accomplishments.
“It’s hard to look at it that way when you see those guys around all the time,” Kent said Tuesday. “The Ben Howlands (UCLA), the Mike Montgomerys (Stanford, and now Cal), the Tim Floyds (USC) have been around so long … you might not have seen them in the Pac-10, but you’ve seen them on the road all the time.”
“If a guy hangs out long enough, pretty soon somebody’s going to go, somebody’s going to be here the longest again.”
Kent is preparing his team for its first public scrimmage of the season tonight at McArthur Court. The scrimmage is free and open to the public, and will start at 6:30 p.m.
While Kent was coaching the Ducks last week, the 74-year-old Olson resigned in Tucson, Ariz., just days after declaring himself “energized” at Arizona’s media day. Olson had coached the Wildcats for 24 seasons.
Just as Kent has become the longest-serving active coach in the league, he is about to reach another milestone at Oregon. Kent’s overall record of 211-134 at Oregon during his 11 years is one win away from tying Howard Hobson (1935-47) for the most in Oregon history.
Kent will most likely tie and break the record on Nov. 14 and Nov. 17 in the Ducks’ first two games of the year against Northern Colorado and Oakland.
“It’s not a record that you can sit there by yourself and say, ‘It’s your record,’” he said. “I’ve had some great people that have played for me and worked for me.”
Even with all his experience, Kent admitted he has to re-learn how to teach such a large, inexperienced group of players
his philosophies.
“You do kind of reinvent yourself, and I think that if you talk about longevity in this game, you need to have the ability to do that,” Kent said.
That heralded freshman class includes forwards Drew Wiley and Josh Crittle, center Michael Dunigan and guards Teondre Williams, Garrett Sim and Matt Humphrey. Wiley, who played at Springfield’s Thurston High School last season, and Sim, from Beaverton’s Sunset High, are the two local players in the group. Sim had a signed letter of intent to play for Cal but changed his mind after former coach Ben Braun was fired.
Crittle, Dunigan and Humphrey are all from the Chicago area, a recruiting pipeline for Kent, an Illinois native. The 6-foot-8 Crittle and 6-foot-5 Humphrey both played on the same high school team, and both played with Dunigan on the same club team, MeanStreets. Many consider Dunigan the jewel of the class, as the 6-foot-10 center was a McDonald’s All-American last season and rated as high as the third-best center in the nation after averaging 20 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks per game as a season.
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Experience will help lead a young team
Daily Emerald
October 29, 2008
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