Stanford was a win the Ducks absolutely needed to stay among the upper echelon of their conference opponents.
Just as Oregon’s place in the Pacific-10 Conference standings was in question, its impressive homestand solidified itself as one of the top teams for the second straight year.
And it proved that size doesn’t matter, just as it did last year.
The Ducks’ victory over Stanford on Sunday was one they could have easily lost, but the veteran decision making, Stanford’s miscues in the final minutes and the defense on Brook Lopez in the second half made the difference in a game where the Cardinal’s inability to make the big shot or free throw cost them the game, despite the best efforts of Lopez and the officials to decide otherwise.
And that’s leaving out the miserable performance by Stanford’s second-leading scorer Anthony Goods, who mostly contributed to his team’s 3-of-19 shooting from three-point land.
Cardinal coach Trent Johnson saw it as a game his team should have won.
“It was more what we didn’t do than what they did,” he said.
While Stanford will still be near the top of the Pac-10 standings when the regular season’s over, Oregon’s defense, despite its size discrepancy, showed that it can handle any opponent thanks to the Ducks’ various offensive and defensive schemes. Even though Stanford’s Lopez twins threatened to swat away every shot taken near the paint, coach Ernie Kent continued to have his players drive toward the basket and expose the Cardinal’s weakness.
“Stanford’s not good off the dribble so we kept the Lopez twins out on the perimeter and we attacked a lot,” Tajuan Porter said.
Although Porter’s three-point shot is still tucked away somewhere, he proved that he doesn’t need to rely on the long-range bucket to still be a dynamic scoring threat. There were multiple times during the game where Porter dribbled around the Cardinal defense and lifted a layup over the head of either Lopez.
So while Stanford continues to rely on its big men to win games, the Ducks’ balance and versatility makes them the best chance to take down Washington State and UCLA in the conference this year. While other teams will be able to focus on stopping the Lopez twins and thereby, the Cardinal’s offense, other Pac-10 teams who try to stop one facet of Oregon’s play-making skills may find themselves only exposed to another.
Stanford tried to stop the Ducks’ three-point attempts by playing on the perimeter and Oregon used its speed to run by them to the basket and loft layups, as Porter exemplified, on multiple occasions. If teams try to slow that down, well, there’s always the three pointer, which has been the greatest weapon in the Ducks’ arsenal, as long as it’s working.
And the best news from the weekend is that if Oregon can win games without Joevan Catron’s presence, imagine the possibilities with him in there. The biggest difference between Oregon’s Elite Eight team and this year’s is the bench. Last year Catron was the only viable non-starter to give quality minutes. Now the Ducks have LeKendric Longmire, Frantz Dorsainvil, Churchill Odia and Kamyron Brown: new guys capable of filling multiple roles and minutes. But once Catron comes back, who starts?
I’m sure Kent is more willing to answer that question, compared to last year’s “Are you playing your starters too much?”
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