The Oregon men’s basketball team was in good spirits Tuesday afternoon, trying to turn a disastrous road trip into a positive lesson.
The Ducks (10-3 overall, 1-2 Pacific-10 Conference) are coming off a two-game road swing through the Bay Area, where they lost by a combined 40 points to California and No. 1 Stanford.
It was the first time since the 1997-98 season that Oregon has failed to win at least one of the two games in a road series.
“We learned from that,” freshman point guard Luke Ridnour said. “We just have to come out and execute every time like [Stanford does]. I mean, they come out and do everything right every time down the floor, and if we can get to that point then we’re going to be a great team too.”
Each game in the Pac-10 is important, and Oregon knows that in order to keep up with the pace of the league it can’t afford to slip on its home court, where it faces the Washington schools Thursday and Saturday.
Head coach Ernie Kent attributed his team’s road woes to a lack of composure.
“We missed like 12 layups and missed a lot of three-pointers [against Cal] and just got rattled,” Kent said. “And that rolled into Stanford.”
Kent knows that he has a young team this year that is not yet used to all the challenges of the road.
“That was a tough road trip for us,” Kent said. “The first thing is to put it behind us. We’ve gotten that trip out of the way and taken the positives out of it.”
The main positive was the play of the freshmen, particularly guard James Davis, forward Luke Jackson and center Jay Anderson.
Ridnour continually has been impressed with Jackson, whose 22 total points last weekend made Kent realize that he needed more minutes.
“He works hard every day, and when a guy works hard it’s hard not to give him minutes,” Ridnour said.

Getting his health back
In the first five minutes of the Cal game, Oregon junior guard Freddie Jones suffered a lower back strain.
“I could never get back in rhythm and it hindered me the whole trip,” said Jones, who had nine points against Cal and only two against Stanford. “It was definitely frustrating, but it gets better every day. I’ve been going through treatments and just trying to do everything I can.
“But my back wasn’t an excuse for my play. I just didn’t play well, and hopefully I’ll get back on track.”
The Ducks face the Washington Huskies Thursday night at 7 p.m. at The Pit.