I don’t think I’m the first to admit that the Oregon men’s basketball team has started the 2009-2010 season far better than I had anticipated.
Coming into the season, I saw a couple new faces mixed in with the same core group that went 8-23 last season with a 2-16 Pacific-10 Conference record.
From a physical standpoint, the Oregon physiques do not appear dramatically superior to those of the 2008-2009 season, but mentally they’ve improved leaps and bounds.
In a situation like the Ducks’ double-overtime win over Washington State last week, the freshmen-heavy squad of old would likely have crumbled and not been able to grind out a win. But head coach Ernie Kent and a heavy dose of new associate head coach Mike Dunlap has got his still relatively young squad into prime position to make a run at the postseason.
Kent and his team were adamant about not getting ahead of themselves when talking with reporters before practice on Wednesday, with senior Tajuan Porter and sophomores Michael Dunigan and Malcolm Armstead each reiterating that message. While 10 wins is a great starting point, there is still a lot of basketball left to be played.
Looking ahead to the remaining 16 conference games on the Ducks schedule — nine at home and seven on the road — it would appear Oregon got its toughest road trip out of the way early on. Sweeping both of the Washington schools in Washington for the first time since the 1999-2000 season ought to bestow enough confidence in the young Ducks to carry over into their next three straight home games.
The reason I keep referring to the Oregon team as young is because Kent’s most used starting lineup consists of three sophomores — Armstead, Dunigan, and Garrett Sim — and two freshmen — E.J. Singler and Jamil Wilson.
Singler, who was considering redshirting this season, has started the last nine games for the Ducks (7-2 during those contests) and has played the second most minutes since moving into his starting role (29 per game), second only to Armstead at 32.2 minutes per game.
Singler might be the biggest surprise of the year thus far. I watched him play as a freshman in high school at South Medford several years ago and did not see him again until the Ducks’ first exhibition game, so my expectations were somewhat limited after seeing the partial success of the heavily touted freshman class last year. Averaging 7.4 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.2 assists as a starter, Singler has provided a much needed work ethic and knack for rebounding, which has taken some of the pressure off of Dunigan inside.
Looking down the road a bit after Sunday’s matchup with Oregon State, the final Civil War at McArthur Court, the Ducks will play host to the Arizona schools before making their second conference road trip down to the Bay Area to take on Cal and Stanford. Stanford was one of the two teams Oregon beat in conference play last season and is looking pretty weak at 7-7 overall this year.
If Oregon stays healthy and continues to pick up wins, and more importantly with a young team, confidence, it could easily be sitting at 15-4 come the final weekend of January when it matches up with second and third place USC and UCLA in Southern California. The Ducks’ next five games come against the bottom five teams in the Pac-10, though only Oregon State (6-8, 0-2 Pac-10) has a losing record at this point in the year.
Luckily, it’s my job to think ahead and get overly excited about the rest of the season, but if the team continues to buy into Kent’s message of taking it one game at a time and not being satisfied with the number of wins they have, then the postseason could certainly be in reach come March.
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