In a bizarre way, this 2006-07 Oregon men’s basketball season, after beginning with such promise and hope that included an emotional victory and a generous ascension up the national polls, is suddenly starting to feel more and more like this past football season for another Duck team.
The latest belly flop from the slip n’ slide of Oregon’s season came Saturday in a devastating 88-69 loss to the Stanford Cardinal.
Aside from that being Oregon’s millionth straight loss at Maples Pavilion, this one’s gonna sting for the Ducks because those postseason plans that seemed like a certainty suddenly are squirming out of the Ducks’ fingers like Play-Doh. Oregon has lost three straight games and six of their last eight.
And those two wins? One included a four-point home win against Arizona State, a team with one Pacific-10 Conference victory, and the other, the Ducks needed every second – literally – to beat Washington State.
So now the word “if” is entering the conversation more now than the word “when” in regards to Oregon’s postseason plans because, in a time when the Ducks should be polishing their bid for tournament consideration, the paint is beginning to chip.
When the rankings are released today, the same Oregon team that once climbed to No. 7 may very well be left off the Top 25 entirely after lackluster performances against California and Stanford – two games that almost certainly would have sealed Oregon’s postseason ticket.
And yet the Ducks looked like a team with nothing to play for. Even more startling is that the Ducks lost to a Cal team that had lost its previous six. This was not an elite team or a team even fighting to break through the postseason bubble.
No.
This is a team that will be on its couch watching the Ducks in the postseason, wherever that may be. Yet, it didn’t look that way.
Oregon’s loss to Stanford, a team fighting for the postseason, seemed worsened by the fact the Cardinal were missing one of its top scorers and a guy named Kenny Brown, who averages seven minutes per game and 2.7 points per game, managed to outscore Maarty Leunen, Bryce Taylor and Malik Hairston.
A head-scratching fact, indeed.
Even if most consider the Ducks a sure lock into the NCAA Tournament, with 20 wins and four against Top 25 teams, the selection committee also heavily considers the way a team finishes the season and, after recent performances, that’s certainly one thing working against the Ducks right now.
The loss Saturday was Oregon’s worst of the season.
And while talk of the postseason continues to float around in postgame interviews, the Ducks have much more pressing issues to deal with – namely how to hold a lead or get a drop of production from a bench that was outscored 19-0 against Stanford.
“We have to push through these last three games (of the regular season) and hopefully getting some tremendous energy at Mac Court to close out our season,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said.
Except, that didn’t help the Ducks before, and they won’t have that added energy of playing at home in the postseason – that is, unless that postseason is the NIT.
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History repeating as basketball traces football footsteps
Daily Emerald
February 18, 2007
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