Brandon Lincoln knows success.
As a sophomore at Jefferson High School in Portland, the Oregon point guard teamed with current Kansas stars Aaron Miles and Michael Lee to win the state’s 4A championship.
Two years later, he was rated as a “super prospect” by http://www.FansOnly.com and was ranked as the 67th-best player in the nation by ESPN.com. That equated to a No. 2 ranking in the state of Oregon.
So when freshman point guard Aaron Brooks went down with an injured wrist in early January, there were no worries.
Right?
“Right now, just filling in the spot, the job just kind of takes care of itself because I’m surrounded by great players,” Lincoln said. “We’re just getting better with every game. We had an unfortunate loss to Arizona where it kind of got out of hand. We’re still making forward progress. We’re not going to let that loss knock us back too far.”
Against the Wildcats, Lincoln and senior James Davis, the heir apparents when Brooks went down, combined to score 12 points, dish out six assists and turn the ball over two times. It can be viewed as a setback, based on statistics alone, but they’ve been successful to a point considering the adjustments the two have had to make.
Since Brooks suffered the injury, Lincoln has averaged 2.8 points and 2.4 assists per game. He failed to score against Washington State and Arizona State, both Oregon wins.
Coming into the season, Davis was virtually anointed the team’s perimeter sharpshooter. He has yet to start a game this season, playing in all but one, and has been deadly from outside. His shooting ability has not been affected by Brooks’ absence.
Overall this season, he is shooting 48.3 percent from beyond the three-point line. In Pac-10 play, he has knocked down 54.3 percent of his shots from downtown.
He ranks second in the Pac-10 in three-pointers — just behind Stanford’s Chris Hernandez, who has made 54.8 percent of his three-pointers, but in 47 less attempts.
He’s been a key offensive leader since Brooks went down. In the past five games, Davis has averaged 13.2 points per game.
“I think we’re doing all right now,” Davis said. “I think it could be a lot better, but as far as us two together, and Luke Jackson playing a little bit, we’re doing all right.”
Jackson has been taking the ball up the court and running the Oregon offense from the point at times. That was the case in the Ducks’ loss to Oregon State on Jan. 10, a game in which the Creswell senior had a career-high 39 points.
During that time, Oregon was a work in progress. Lincoln was starting his first career game in a Ducks uniform and had just six points and two assists. Davis, meanwhile, connected for 17 points but was unable to establish an offensive rhythm in the second half.
Last season, Lincoln played in 26 games for the Ducks, averaging a little more than eight minutes a contest. He was a valuable contributor off the bench and served that role well on a team that had Luke Ridnour.
Ridnour was on the fast track to the NBA, eventually getting drafted by Seattle with the 14th overall selection in the 2003 draft.
When Brooks came to Eugene, it was expected he would see backup action at the point, allowing Lincoln to come off the bench at the other guard position. When Ridnour left, it threw a wrench into the Oregon offense, forcing Brooks, the super freshman, into increased playing time.
That meant Lincoln was an even more valuable tool as a sophomore.
Lincoln said Oregon head coach Ernie Kent’s feedback for him has been to “stay aggressive and stay optimistic.
“Guys make mistakes all the time. I’m not perfect. Nobody’s perfect. He knows I’m going to make mistakes. He just wants to make sure I stay optimistic and keep trying to get better.”
For Lincoln, the adjustment is obvious. He had been well-accustomed to seeing the first minutes of the game from the bench, then reacting to the situation when replacing Brooks on the floor.
Now he has to know what he’s going to attack before the game even starts.
“At first, it kind of caught me by surprise,” Lincoln said of his starting role. “It’s still a work in progress. There’s still a lot of things I need to work through. There are things the guys are helping me on. I’m getting better with it every day.
“Coming off the bench, you can get a feel for the how the game is going. I wasn’t really adjusted to starting the game, getting right into it. That was something I wasn’t used to. Coming straight out and playing is kind of different.”
Lincoln is expected to get consistent time on the floor until Brooks gets back on the scene, which is expected to be in late February. Kent said the freshman from Seattle is right on schedule for his return to the lineup.
Brooks is set to have pins taken out of the wrist on Monday and will undergo a CT scan on Wednesday. If all is well, Kent said, the cast could be taken off the same day. From then on, he will start his rehabilitation with the team.
“It will then be just a matter of how well his body responds as to when he can get back to us,” Kent said.
It is possible that Brooks could return Feb. 19 against Arizona at McArthur Court. That would put him on target to return six weeks after the injury, matching the 6-to-8 week timetable the Ducks originally set for him.
The Ducks will enjoy Brooks’ ability to make the sharp pass, something he was getting accustomed to doing as Oregon started off its season.
In nine games before the injury — all starts — Brooks averaged 23.9 minutes, 6.7 points and a shade under three assists a game. Those figures were punctuated in the game before the injury, a 92-74 win for the Ducks over Southern California in Los Angeles.
In that game, he scored 13 points and dished out four assists.
Until he returns, though, those figures will stay frozen.
In the meantime, Davis and Lincoln will handle the point guard duties. Third place is at stake when the Ducks host California tonight at McArthur Court.
“I think it means a lot (third place) for us with the fact that we lost our point guard and we’ve been able to survive the first half of the conference,” Kent said. “I think that would say a lot about this basketball team, that we finish in third place. Obviously with two great games this weekend, we have the opportunity to do that.
“(Lincoln and Davis) have not run it with the effectiveness Aaron Brooks would have, but I think they’ve done a commendable job there. We’ve kind of patchworked that position a little bit, and that again is a great compliment for this team, that we can get through this weekend without that point guard position where it needs to be.”
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