The Oregon men’s basketball team will look to end its current three-game losing streak as they take on the California Golden Bears tonight in Berkeley, Calif. at 7:30 p.m.
The young Duck squad (10-7, 2-3 Pacific-10 Conference) welcomes the Bay Area road trip after dropping three straight conference games at home following their historic sweep of the Washington schools three weeks ago.
“I think again when teams are struggling the best place for them to be is on the road,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “It really is, because it gives you the sense that you’ve got their attention, you can focus in, you can come back together because you can eliminate all the distractions.”
Oregon will need to focus in on the defensive side of the ball, something that greatly lacked over the past few games, in order to slow the explosive Cal offense. Senior guard Jerome Randle has paced the Golden Bear attack with 19.5 points and 4.7 assists per game, while fellow senior guard Patrick Christopher follows closely behind at 16.5 points and 5.6 rebounds per outing.
Randle exploded for a career high 39 points in a 93-88 victory over Washington State last Thursday. He finished the game 7-of-12 from three-point range and also dished out nine
assists in playing 40 minutes. His point total was the most points scored by a Cal player since Leon Powe scored 41 during the 2006 season.
“He’s a good guard,” sophomore Garrett Sim said. “One of the best in the Pac-10 and he’s going to be a challenge for all the guards on our team. We’ve just got to try and contain him, you know, he’s light and quick so it’ll be a tough challenge.”
Sim will be one of several Oregon guards who will look to slow Randle, and he says the key will be putting pressure on him when he has the ball and force him to make decisions with a hand in his face. Sim got the start in Saturday’s loss to Arizona, but Kent was unsure of what the starting rotation is going to look like when he spoke to reporters before practice on Tuesday.
The Ducks will likely see a 2-3 zone defense from the Golden Bears, which should result in more touches for sophomore center Michael Dunigan. The Chicago native ranks second in the Pac-10 in field goal percentage at 59.2 percent, and fourth in blocked shots per game (1.4).
“Our inside game is really good,” Kent said. “Mike is getting better every day, and he’s going to have people pay attention to him with double-teams and things like that, which I think will free T.P. up a little bit more.”
Kent went on to say that Dunigan has shown a lot of growth both on and off the court over the past few games, as he’s started to emerge as a vocal leader both in the huddles and in practice. The Ducks desperately need his leadership to right the ship and avoid another 2-16 conference finish.
“People are holding each other accountable for certain things offensively and defensively in
practice,” Dunigan said.
Accountability was an important issue for Oregon this week.
“We can see it, preach it and teach it,” Kent said. “But they have to be able to do, and I like the fact that they’ve responded these past couple days.”
Cal, the preseason favorite to win the conference, has gone 9-1 at home this season with its lone loss coming at the hands of the UCLA Bruins on Jan. 6. UCLA’s Michael Roll nailed a 13-footer with 1.9 seconds left in overtime to hand the Golden Bears the 76-75 loss. Senior forward Theo Robinson paced Cal with 24 points that night and joined Christopher and Randle as the trio of 1,000-career point scorers on the team.
“They all can go and they all can score,” Kent said. “They’ve got four great scorers on
that team.”
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Road could be what doctor ordered
Daily Emerald
January 19, 2010
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