How do you guard the player that some call the best in the Pacific-10 Conference?
How do you keep the 6-foot-8 forward from dominating the low post and having his way? How do you guard the sophomore who averages 23.1 points and 9.7 rebounds per game?
Do what everybody else does: Double team him, say the Ducks.
It just might not be that easy.
“If he gets inside and he gets low position, he’s going to score just about every time,” Oregon’s Ian Crosswhite said of Arizona State’s Ike Diogu. “You can’t foul him because he’s such a great free throw shooter. It’s going to be a big job. It was last year and it will be this year.”
Diogu, of course, is central to Crosswhite’s focus when Oregon travels to Tempe to take on Arizona State at 7:30 p.m. today.
The Garland, Texas, native constitutes the bulk of the Sun Devil offense. He accounts for 31 percent of Arizona State’s 74.4 points per game. His rebounding rate of 8.7 per game amounts to 23.5 percent of the team’s average (36.9).
To sum it up, Diogu leads the conference in scoring, is second in blocked shots (33), third in rebounds per game and eighth in free throw shooting (84.6 percent).
Diogu is Arizona State. He dominates the Sun Devils’ media guide, appearing on its cover with descriptions, including: “Wooden Award candidate and a First-team Preseason All-American by Dick Vitale, Street & Smith’s, Basketball News and Sporting News.”
Not too shabby.
“You don’t attack Ike on defense,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “Ike’s going to get his points. You just need to make sure he doesn’t have a monster game, but I think you need to make Ike play defense. We have some capable post guys that we’re not going to be afraid to turn loose and have them go score the basketball.”
During the 2002-03 season, Diogu posted 17 points and 14 rebounds in Arizona State’s 91-77 win against the Ducks at Wells Fargo Arena. That’s the same place the teams will play tonight.
It’s also the same place that has presented itself as a house of horrors for Oregon over the past three seasons. The Ducks have not won in Tempe since Feb. 5, 2000. That was the year before Luke Jackson and James Davis came to
Eugene.
No one in an Oregon uniform has ever defeated the Sun Devils at Wells Fargo Arena.
“We’ve had a couple big leads and kind of blown it a couple times down there,” Oregon forward Luke Jackson said. “It’s just one of those places. They got the best of us the last three years, but we’re going down there trying to get a win and we feel like we can do that.”
The game is the first of two that will keep the Ducks in Arizona for three days. After taking on the Sun Devils, Oregon will face off against No. 14 Arizona in Tucson on Sunday.

When looking back at the season at the end of the year, the road trip through the desert could be a pivotal weekend for Oregon. The Ducks have never swept the Sun Devils and Wildcats on the road during the same trip.
Since the Pac-10 added Arizona and Arizona State for the 1978-79 season, Oregon has been swept by the Arizona schools 13 times. The Ducks have split the road swing 12 times.
That pinpoints why the upcoming games take on meaning for the Ducks. With two games left in the first half of the conference season after this week, two wins would be vital. Two losses could also be heartbreaking.
Should the Ducks sweep in Arizona, they would be 5-2 in conference play and in good position for the California and Stanford visits to Eugene next week. If Oregon splits, it would be 4-3 and presumably in the same position in the conference standings it is now — fourth.
In the event the Ducks lose both, it would shift them to 3-4, making the games against the Golden Bears and the Cardinal virtual must-wins.
“We know how important each game is and we’re definitely going down there to win two games,” Jackson said. “We feel like if we keep both these teams off the board and kind of neutralize what they do in transition, as far as pressuring us, I think we feel like we can win two games.”