After a 22-point loss to Stanford at Maples Pavilion last Thursday in which some key veterans played poorly, Oregon head coach Ernie Kent promised changes to the lineup.
He said he was disappointed in the play of some of his veterans and, though they were giving him all the effort he could ask for, their lack of productivity was forcing him to look at juggling the starting lineup.
He did switch the rotation around for Saturday’s game at Haas Pavilion against California, but not by taking the veterans out of the starting lineup.
For the first time in conference play Saturday, Oregon started a lineup that didn’t feature any freshmen.
Freshman guard Garrett Sim was replaced by sophomore guard Kamyron Brown. Senior forward Churchill Odia replaced freshman center Michael Dunigan in the starting lineup, as junior forward Joevan Catron slid over to fill the post.
Oregon played four freshmen in the game: center Josh Crittle, center Michael Dunigan, forward Matt Humphrey and Sim, for a nine-man rotation.
What followed was Oregon’s best performance of the conference season, a seven-point loss to Cal, its narrowest defeat in a winless start. And the Ducks managed to out-score Cal in the second half 41-40, just their second winning half of basketball in league play.
Still, Kent isn’t convinced that is the lineup he’ll go with Saturday at Gill Coliseum against the red-hot Beavers, winners of three straight.
“A lot of that depends on how our preparation goes this week. I’m comfortable bringing them off the bench and I’m comfortable putting them in the lineup as well,” Kent said in a teleconference with reporters Tuesday morning. “We may go that direction again over at Oregon State or we may put another freshman in the lineup.”
Though none of the freshmen started at Cal, all played double-digit minutes. They will continue to get meaningful minutes in any role they assume, Kent said.
“Early on in the first half I looked over at the scorers table and there was four of them going into the game,” Kent said of the freshmen. “They’re still going to play and play a lot. They did a good job.”
The best week ever
Oregon State head coach Craig Robinson had a good week last week by any standard. On Tuesday he watched the presidential inauguration of his brother-in-law Barack Obama from arms’ reach. Then over the weekend his Beaver basketball team swept the Bay Area schools for the first time in more than 15 years. They followed that up with a win over Cal State Bakersfield on Monday night.
“That’s about as good as it can get,” Robinson said of his week. “First of all, the inauguration was as good as advertised. If you saw any of it on television, up close it was even better. It was a hugely emotional time.”
The inauguration and the media buzz surrounding Robinson’s relation to the president might have given his team a bit of a free pass if they had under-performed this weekend, he said. He credited them for staying focused.
“Honestly, my team had every single reason not to play well this weekend. You guys can’t imagine what kind of distraction this has been for them,” he said. “Everybody wants to talk to them about that more than they want to talk about their basketball abilities … It’s hard to focus but those guys kept on eye on what we were trying to do and they just executed.”
And for all the distraction the inauguration may have caused the Beavers last week, at least they can rest assured that they are being followed by the new president. Despite the rigors of assuming the country’s highest political office, Robinson said Obama took the time to call and congratulate him on his team’s success last weekend.
“We talked for about 35 minutes or so. He wanted to know all the details,” Robinson said. “That was very exciting. I passed it along to the team and they were very excited that he had called to check on them.”
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