As the Pacific-10 Conference regular season begins to grind down and teams prepare for the conference tournament, one ugly truth for Oregon is beginning to show.
The Ducks need to win the Pac-10’s postseason tournament in order to get to the NCAA version.
OK, so it’s still possible that four wins in four games to end the season could get Oregon to the Big Dance. That, however, is not a likely scenario.
“Yeah, it is hard not looking forward to (the Pac-10 Tournament),” Oregon forward Ian Crosswhite said. “You think about it a little bit. But still we’re not going to win it if we don’t play well up to it. If we don’t kind of get on a roll and win some games, it’s going to be hard to get into the tournament and play good basketball.”
This season, eerily, has mirrored Oregon’s 2002-03 effort. With four games left to play last season, the Ducks were 8-6 in Pac-10 play. They went on to drop two of their next four before winning three straight in Los Angeles at the conference tournament.
Oregon needed to win it last season to get into the NCAA Tournament, and it did. The scenario this year will be the same.
But as Crosswhite said, the Ducks can’t look too far ahead. California and Stanford are pivotal opponents, especially on their home courts.
“The thing you learn in terms of being in athletics is that you can’t look back, you’ve got to continue to look ahead,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “We’re still in the grind of the season. Obviously it has not gone the way we want it to go, but that’s OK. We’re still here and we’re still in the hunt for some things.”
Playing to the Ducks’ favor this season is the lack of any clearcut favorites after No. 1 Stanford. Arizona showed its vulnerability in a loss to Oregon State on Saturday, and teams ranked third through sixth in the Pac-10 standings are just a game and a half apart.
“With the exception of Stanford, everybody has had some tough losses along the way,” Kent said. “We’re just sitting there battling each other, so someone is going to emerge out of all of that. We have just as good a chance as anyone else to do that.”
After the Ducks emerge out of the muck that will be California’s Haas Pavilion and Stanford’s Maples Pavilion, they return to McArthur Court to face off against Southern California and UCLA. Then comes Pac-10 Tournament time.

Watch the ball bounce
Aaron Brooks emerged before Tuesday’s practice without the glove he had been wearing during Oregon’s games against Arizona and Arizona State.
All systems are well for the freshman from Seattle. His wrist is feeling fine.
“It’s the same as before the games,” he said. “It’s getting better every day, to be honest. It’s not carefree. It’s always on my mind, some of the stuff I do. But not enough to limit my game at all.”
Brooks’ next big challenge comes Saturday at Stanford. Not only do the Ducks take on the top-ranked Cardinal, but Brooks also gets his one and only chance to play on Maples Pavilion’s infamous bouncy floor.
It’s being replaced prior to next season during the arena’s $30 million renovation, but the Ducks will get to play on it once more.
“I heard about (the floor),” Brooks said. “I’m going to be excited. We’re all going to come out excited because they’re No. 1 in the country. I don’t know what to expect, though.”

Still one of them
Luke Jackson is still one of six players in the nation who leads his team in points, rebounds and assists per game.
The Creswell native is averaging a Pac-10 second-best 22 points per game. He’s doing this while grabbing seven rebounds and dishing out five assists per game.
The other five players are Stetson’s E.J. Gordon, Nicholls State’s Willie Depron, Eastern Washington’s Alvin Snow, Southwest Texas State’s Terry Conerway and Southern Illinois’ Darren Brooks.
Jackson leads every player in every category, except for Gordon. The two are tied in rebounds.

More Jackson
With 42 points against Arizona in a losing effort Thursday, the senior now has two of the top seven individual scoring efforts in a game by an Oregon player.
He scored 39 against Oregon State on Jan. 10, displacing Terrell Brandon — who had 38 against the Beavers in 1991 — for seventh all-time.
Jackson’s effort against the Wildcats was one point less than the all-time Oregon record of 43. That mark was set by Greg Ballard in 1977.
Coincidentally, with 53 more points, Jackson will pass Ballard for third all-time on Oregon’s career scoring list. Jackson has 1,777 points in 116 career games.