A mysterious pattern has emerged for the Oregon men’s basketball team.
No matter the foe, the Ducks seem to play to their opponent’s level; the disturbing part of this trend is that most of the time Oregon plays just poorly enough to lose.
The most recent case in point was Saturday’s 65-56 loss to California at McArthur Court. If the Ducks could have scored anywhere near their season average of 80 points, they would have beaten Cal.
But Oregon managed only 56 and shot just 37.5 percent from the field.
Last Thursday against Stanford, the Ducks did the same thing, only in reverse. Oregon hung with Stanford most of the game, matching the Cardinal’s inside threats with some big men of its own, and neutralizing Stanford’s outside shooters.
But down the stretch, the Ducks lost steam and allowed the Cardinal to pull away and win 69-62.
The best example is last Sunday’s game against Arizona State. The Ducks, playing the worst team in the Pacific-10 Conference at that time, played like they wanted that honor for themselves.
Oregon shot 38.5 percent from the field and allowed ASU to score 99 points on 61.9 percent shooting.
The reason for the recent decline of the Ducks may be a feeling of overall team fatigue.
“We just ran out of gas for the second week in a row,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said after Saturday’s loss to Cal.
Kent said his young team isn’t accustomed to the rigorous Pac-10 schedule, and it shows.
“What I saw today was no one having the energy to step up and say ‘lets go,’” Kent said. “When you have that mental fatigue, it’s tough to do. The players themselves just want to play, but they can also feel the frustration of the long season.”
“There are times when we might not be able to tell. Coach has an eye for that, and he’ll sub us in,” Oregon guard Anthony Norwood said. “As a player, you just want to stay out there and keep pushing.”
Cal’s Sean Lampley wasn’t mentally fatigued Saturday, and he was able to lift his team over Oregon. Lampley scored six points in the final 5:14 as the Bears outscored the Ducks 14-6 down the stretch to notch their eighth Pac-10 victory. It was Oregon’s eighth Pac-10 loss.
“I thought we played hard and aggressive,” Cal head coach Ben Braun said. “We had a tough defensive effort — that’s what we needed.”
The Bears outplayed Oregon in the second half, just as Stanford did Thursday. The Ducks went over four minutes without a point late in Thursday’s contest, and allowed the No. 2 Cardinal to turn a seven point deficit into a six point lead.
“You’re over there trying to coach, but there’s not a lot you can do when they’re worn like that,” Kent said. “We’ll readjust our schedule. We’ll take Sundays and Mondays off and practice hard on Tuesday. With those freshmen playing so many minutes, we’re trying to help them out as much as we can.”
Freshman point guard Luke Ridnour plays 30.5 minutes per game, second on the team, while reserve freshman Luke Jackson averages 16 minutes per game. Overall, four Ducks average more than 25 minutes per game, while four others average more than 10 minutes per contest.
The Ducks will play road games against Washington and Washington State this week before returning home to play the southern California schools.