Well, it’s just Washington State; just the good old, 5-18, last-in-the-Pacific-10-Conference Cougars.
It’s also the team that has lost six-straight games in Eugene — the team that’s won one game in its last 17 tries. The team that had six players suspended last season when the Cougars decided to take a late-night jaunt to Rock ‘n Rodeo and played the Ducks with seven players.
But this is a team that still plays in the Pac-10, so it still has talent — so it could, conceivably, upset a Pac-10 team at any time. Washington State will try to upset Oregon at McArthur Court tonight, starting at 7 p.m.
“It’s tough to play any team in the conference,” Oregon forward Luke Jackson said. “Even though their record doesn’t show it, they’re still a tough game for us.”
Just ask the Ducks. Earlier this season, they took a supposedly easy road trip to Washington and came back with a split instead of a sweep, though Oregon lost at Washington, not Washington State.
Part of the reason the Washington schools fought the Ducks so hard is because of the recently reinstated conference tournament at the end of the season. Only eight teams advance to the Pac-10 Tournament, so the conference bottom-feeders have that eighth place to fight for.
“Even if they were out of it, they’d play hard,” Oregon senior guard Freddie Jones said.
And Washington State is virtually out of the great race for eighth. With four games left, the Cougars are 2.5 games behind Oregon State, the current leader for eighth place.
The Ducks, meanwhile, are in the center of another race — the race for the Pac-10 championship. Oregon is tied with Stanford and USC for the top spot in the conference, but the Trojans will face the Cardinal on Thursday. With the Ducks heading to Southern California next weekend, Washington State and Washington become
almost must-win games if the Ducks want to win the conference.
“The thing we’ve done a good job of is taking care of ourselves,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “That’s all we’ve been doing all year long, and that’s all we’re doing this week.”
The Ducks won’t be able to control the five other teams bunched up at the top of the Pac-10, but those teams should take care of themselves. Behind the three leaders, three other teams — Arizona, UCLA and California — are within a game of first place. UCLA will face Cal tonight and Stanford on Saturday, while Arizona played Arizona State on Wednesday.
Six of Oregon’s senior players will be honored in pregame ceremonies before Saturday’s contest with Washington.
“These are my last games here, so it’s not going to be hard to get up,” Jones said with a smile Tuesday.
Along with Jones, the Ducks will honor seniors Chris Christoffersen, Anthony Lever, Ben Lindquist, Mark Michaelis and Kristian Christensen. Senior student manager Greg Lawrence will also be honored.
After the ceremonies, Oregon will face Washington, the team that forced the Ducks’ split in the Evergreen state. The Huskies toppled the Ducks, 97-92, in January, mostly because of a career-high 30-point performance from forward Doug Wrenn.
“We’ve got to be a little more intense than we were up there,” Kent said of guarding Wrenn. “We need to be a little more conscious of where he’s at on the floor.”
The Ducks will take on the Huskies at 7 p.m. Saturday. That game will be televised on the Oregon Sports Network. Tonight’s game will not be televised.