No matter what your opinion is of Oregon men’s basketball coach Ernie Kent, you must admit that his recent decisions have placed the team’s and the program’s best interests first.
Last week, Kent made a decision many people thought probable: He released troubled forward Ivan Johnson from scholarship.
The announcement came after a season during which Kent was accused of losing control of his team on numerous occasions.
Truthfully, Kent never lost control of the squad.
Malik Hairston didn’t shout at assistant coach Kenny Payne during the conference tournament. Maarty Leunen didn’t give Kent the talk-to-the-hand treatment. And Ray Schafer never headed to the bench without acknowledging teammates and sitting on the bench with a scowl.
No, you see, those were examples of Johnson’s poor temperament. Kent simply lost control of the Ivan Johnson experiment, and the decision to release him was a difficult but necessary one.
Of course, in hindsight, the critics are asking why Kent brought him here in the first place.
Kent’s initial decision to offer Johnson a scholarship was certainly a gamble. And it’s one that, obviously, blew up in his face.
But taking a look at the situation, Kent did the right thing for the Oregon program.
Johnson was brought in to fill a void Oregon desperately needed filled – an inside presence to provide muscle after the loss of Mitch Platt.
The gamble to bring in the chronically immature Johnson made sense. He is a physical specimen at 6-foot-8, 255 pounds, and he showed flashes of brilliance last season.
For instance, he provided the majority of Oregon’s offense in an early-season matchup against Illinois by scoring 16 points. He scored 16 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament against Washington.
But there were times when Johnson barely touched the floor because of foul trouble (he led the team with 84 fouls) or series after series of making poor plays, which often resulted in his getting distracted and focusing too much on the referees.
If Johnson had been able to place his ego and constant attitude problems in the back seat, he had the potential to be one of Oregon’s most productive big men.
As it turns out, Johnson will be remembered for his defiance and his short-lived career.
But Johnson’s potential was enough of a reason to offer him the chance to succeed in Eugene.
In the end, Kent and his staff considered Johnson more of a negative impact than a positive one, and with Platt returning, the need for Johnson’s sporadic play disappeared.
Though I am sad to see Johnson and his unbelievable upside leave in the manner that they are, this decision is a necessary one for an Oregon team that needs anything but distractions, especially heading into a season with a potentially wide-open Pac-10 title race.