CORVALLIS —
Correspondence with my parents after Oregon’s uglier-than-a-buck-toothed-beaver win over Oregon State on Saturday night…
Dear Mom and Dad,
Hello on this long weekend. How are things in Seattle? Did you get a chance to listen to the Oregon game on the radio? I don’t know if you guys heard it, but it wasn’t much to hear anyway. An ugly win for the Ducks, in every sense. Lots of fouls, lots of missed shots. But they won, and they’re leading the Pac-10, and that’s all that matters, right?
Leading the Pac-10. That seems weird. I always thought that last year’s team, with Bryan “20 points-a-night” Bracey, would be the team to be leading the Pac, but it never did. Instead, the 2002 Oregon players have come together like they never did last season, and the result is an explosive, dominating team. It’ll be fun to watch this team down the stretch, they could be capable of miracles like the 2000, 20-win wonder boys.
Anyway, I hope all is well up north. Huskies vs. Ducks on Thursday. Are you going? You should.
Love, Peter
Dear Peter,
Great to hear from you. We love your e-mails.
Well, you guessed we’d sure try to listen to the Ducks last night, and we finally did — on the Beaver Sports Network, gulp. The dreadfully depressed Beaver announcer couldn’t keep his sadness and distress to himself.
Drat — the Oakland Raiders football game and then the Portland Blazers game both preempted the Duck game on the so-called Duck Sports (radio) Network in Portland. Why on earth broadcast a professional basketball game which fans can hear any night of the week and discard the Civil War game? Doesn’t seem right, since we get so few honest-to-goodness amateur and college basketball games to listen to on the radio.
That’s my opinion — try asking in a column if Ducks sports should get priority on the Ducks Sports Network, especially when they’re playing the Beavers (in anything).
Love to you,
Mom and Dad
Dear Mom and Dad,
That’s too bad about the Beaver Sports Network. But I don’t really agree with you about the Oregon radio.
I would have rather listened to an overtime snow-battle play off football game than the ugly Ducks on Saturday night. I mean, that game was truly dismal to watch. Maybe it sounded better on the radio but in person it was like a bad nightmare. Beaver fans behind us yelled at their players and coach, and Duck fans didn’t have much to cheer about themselves.
The game started out all right, with the Ducks controlling tempo and all that in the first few minutes. Then the fouls started, the post play heated up and the game turned from electric to extremely boring.
But there was a group of dunking acrobats that performed during a time-out. And that football game on television at halftime. Those were pretty much the highlights because the second half of the basketball game was almost as bad as the first.
But, as I said before, the Ducks are leading the Pac-10, and that’s what’s important. They withstood Oregon State’s best effort. UCLA couldn’t withstand Arizona’s run on Saturday, so they fell behind in the Pac-10 race. We’ll see on Thursday whether the Ducks truly eliminated their road jitters.
So, that’s about it. Again, I hope all is well. Ducks vs. Huskies Thursday. Time to let the always-interesting Pac-10 season unfold a little more.
Love, Peter.
E-mail reporter Peter Hockaday at [email protected].