Saturday afternoon’s matchup between Oregon and Oregon State won’t play a big role in where either team finishes the season, that much is obvious. Though the Ducks are currently tied for fifth place in the Pacific-10 Conference standings, with the Beavers following in ninth, postseason appearances have been out of the question for both teams for some time now.
Oregon has played well as of late, and has won five of its last seven games dating back to the Jan. 22 win in Corvallis, while the Beavers have gone 1-6 during the same stretch. Both teams pulled stunning upsets over the Washington Huskies two weeks ago, and by all means, Oregon should have taken both games in Los Angeles last weekend, instead of just the one.
Regardless, Saturday won’t have the same end-of-the-season drama we’ve grown accustomed to these past few football seasons. When you think Civil War football, an entirely different animal comes to mind, but that shouldn’t detract from this weekend’s matchup.
To be clear, neither team has much to look at for the casual fan. If you don’t follow Oregon basketball, maybe one or two athletes (I’m giving the nod to you, Tyrone and Teondre) will make you take a second look, but for the most part you’re in for a game filled with semi-organized chaos.
Oregon State, who leads the nation with 10.13 steals per game, loves to get a hand in the passing lane and get transition offense rolling. Sophomore Jared Cunningham leads the Beavers in that department, ranking first in the Pac-10 and third in the nation with 2.96 steals per contest.
Standing 6-foot-4, Cunningham stations himself near midcourt, eagerly awaiting opposing point guards to step foot in his domain. Oregon State’s 1-3-1 half-court defense can be difficult for smaller guards to handle, but really, it hasn’t affected Oregon all that much in the past few matchups.
For good measure, Oregon’s backcourt has grown up noticeably this year. The Ducks are a perimeter-based team, and the guards have stepped up accordingly. Of Oregon’s five leading scorers this season, three are capable of playing either the one or two-guard position.
Senior transfer Jay-R Strowbridge has come into his own during Oregon’s turnaround, giving the team extremely valuable minutes off the bench after some questioned what exactly his role would be this season. Strowbridge has more experience than everyone on the team not named Joevan Catron, and it shows on the court each night. He’s averaging nine points and more than 24 minutes off the bench, while keeping pace with the team lead in three-pointers with 32 total makes.
Oregon’s fourth leading scorer — hold your breath — junior guard Garrett Sim, also has emerged as the player everyone expected him to be straight out of high school. Coming in as the reigning Oregon Class 6A player of the year, Sim was put under a microscope early on, and had trouble living up to those expectations. He started 26 games with mixed results as a true freshman in 2008-09 — and just five as a sophomore last season — but has been able to stay consistent enough defensively to stay on the court, starting 22 of the Ducks’ 25 games this year.
Ultimately, players like Sim and Strowbridge had no other choice but to rise to the occasion in 2011. There is no depth to turn to, and I like to think they understood that. With freshman Johnathan Loyd and junior Malcolm Armstead handling all of the point guard duties, Sim and Strowbridge have been able to stay in their comfort zone splitting time at the two-guard, and the Ducks have reaped the benefits.
A shining example came at Gill Coliseum earlier this season, when Sim and Strowbridge had 15 points each, accounting for nearly half of Oregon’s offense in the 63-59 victory. Their counterpart, Cunningham, tallied just nine points and two steals in the losing effort.
Saturday may not have all the same intangibles of an early-December Civil War matchup on the gridiron, but in the nation’s most played college basketball rivalry, you can certainly expect some of that same chaos.
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Clark: Civil War won’t be pretty, but it should be fun to watch
Daily Emerald
February 16, 2011
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