– In a familiar narrative, Oregon men’s basketball faced another halftime deficit on the road. Playing Alabama on the road, the Ducks were physically outmatched early and trailed 38-26 at halftime. But the Ducks, led by Dillon Brooks, Jordan Bell and Chris Boucher, responded with a 26-8 run to open the second half en route to a 72-68 victory. Brooks had a team-high 23 points to go along with five assists and four rebounds for the Ducks.
– When the Ducks signed former Montana State graduate transfer quarterback Dakota Prukop last week, it was the second consecutive season in which Oregon looked outside its program for a successor at the position. Vernon Adams Jr.’s transfer from Eastern Washington last season proved to be right move, but Prukop’s arrival has some wondering if the Ducks are struggling to develop their own quarterbacks out of high school. Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich defended his team’s approach of developing and recruiting quarterbacks last Friday:
“I don’t think it speaks to the development of anything,” Helfrich said. “I think it speaks to the importance of talent certainly at that position. Yeah, it’s funny that all the teams that have recruited guys over the last years can’t develop people. I think that’s a little odd and nobody said one thing about not being able to develop centers that we brought in (graduate transfer) Matt Hegarty or (junior college transfer) Kyle Long or whoever.”
– Just 10 games into her collegiate career, Oregon women’s basketball guard Maite Cazorla was named Pac-12 freshman of the week on Monday. In recent victories over Portland State and UC Riverside, Cazorla tallied 19 assists while committing no turnovers. Cazorla’s assist-to-turnover ratio (4.18) is the fourth best mark in the country in addition to ranking seventh in assists per game (7.1)
– Dylan Ennis, Oregon men’s basketball’s transfer from Villanova, announced he will return from a foot injury in the Ducks’ next game against Western Oregon on Dec. 29. After Oregon defeated Alabama on Monday, Ennis tweeted, “Get to enjoy this Christmas break and be ready when we get back #TheWaitIsOver! 12.29.2015.”
Big road win for us! Very much needed! Get to enjoy this Christmas break and be ready for when we get back #TheWaitIsOver! 🙏🏾 12.29.2015
— Dylan Ennis (@canadiankidDJE) December 22, 2015
Ennis, who sat out the first 11 games of the season, is the last key rotation player to return from injury.
– Oregon baseball was ranked no. 14 in Collegiate Baseball’s Fab 40 Poll released Monday. Coming off of a 38-25 2015 season, the Ducks received 463 points in the poll. Oregon had the fourth-highest ranking among Pac-12 teams, trailing Cal, Oregon State and UCLA.
– Former Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington, who was a three-year starter for the Ducks from 1999-2003, wrote a piece for Sports Illustrated’s The Cauldron reflecting on his collegiate and NFL career. More so than anything in his NFL career, Harrington’s biggest regret remains not reaching the Rose Bowl while at Oregon. Although many consider his seven-year pro career, in which he played for four teams, a failure, Harrington believes it was a success:
“To me, my career was a huge success,” Harrington wrote. “Not so much because of what I achieved or didn’t achieve, but in how it set me up for the rest of my life. In my mind, the only time you can view someone’s football career as a failure is if they didn’t use their success as a platform to better the world around them.”
Follow Will Denner on Twitter @Will_Denner
