The 1997 national champion Arizona Wildcats. The 2001 Oregon Ducks.
Seems like a fair comparison.
Arizona coach Lute Olson said the play of Oregon on Saturday invoked
memories of his ’97 championship squad after the Ducks demolished
the No. 11 Wildcats Saturday night, 105-75, at McArthur Court. More
than 9,000 holiday fans saw Oregon, now 8-3 overall and 2-0 in
Pacific-10 Conference play, do everything right in its first real test
of the season.
“Everything is clicking for this team right now,” Oregon head
coach Ernie Kent said. “The blueprint is in place. We’ve played
the same way in each of our six wins.”
Indeed, the Ducks seemed invincible Saturday night, but not before the
Wildcats played a little top-25 basketball of their own. Arizona
freshman Rick Anderson and senior Luke Walton played strong inside,
and senior guard Jason Gardner hit a three-pointer as the Wildcats
took a 17-9 lead at the 13:41 mark.
But the Ducks clawed their way back into the game, and took their
first lead of the contest with a James Davis three-pointer at the
10:47 mark. Davis hit a second trey, and Freddie Jones added another
moments later as Oregon mounted a lead it would not relinquish. The
Ducks made the lead 10 points at the 5:20 mark, and never let the
Wildcats get the lead to single digits after that.
“The offense we ran just got us a lot of open looks,” said Davis,
who finished the game with 14 points.
Davis led a crew of Oregon three-point shooters with four treys in the
game. Guard Luke Ridnour added four long balls, Jones had two and
forward Luke Jackson also had two.
Jackson scored 28 points to lead all scorers, his second-straight game
with more than 27 points. The sophomore added five rebounds and four
assists against the Wildcats.
“I don’t know how many guys in the country have played as well as
he has in the past 48 hours,” Kent said of Jackson.
Oregon set a few records in beating Arizona. The Ducks tied a team
record for three-pointers in a game with 13. Oregon’s 30-point
margin of victory was its largest in the series versus Arizona, and
the Wildcats’ worse loss under Olson. After beating Arizona State
103-93 Thursday night, Oregon broke the century mark in back-to-back
conference games for the first time ever.
Saturday’s victory was also the Ducks’ third-straight home win
over the Wildcats, who seem to be cursed of late at Mac Court.
“It’s got to be the fans,” Jones said. “And we didn’t even
have all our students here tonight. We know when they come back,
it’s going to be even louder.”
The Ducks will take on first-year Division I school Morris Brown on
Thursday at Mac Court before hitting the road to play the Arizona
schools in Arizona.
Oregon returns home – with the students – to
play California and Stanford Jan. 10 and 12, respectively.
Emerald sports reporter Peter Hockaday can be reached at
[email protected].