A few months ago, few would have guessed that the Oregon men’s basketball team would surge all the way to the No. 3 seed in the Pac-12 tournament. Not the fans, not the media, and, apparently, not the Ducks’ travel agent. @@http://pac-12.org/SPORTS/BasketballM/Standings.aspx@@
Oregon booked its tickets for the postseason tournament in Los Angeles long before the regular season ended on Saturday and made the plans under the assumption that it would begin play as a lower seed on Wednesday. Instead, the Ducks swept through their final three games of the season to earn the No. 3 seed and a coveted first round bye they had been talking about for weeks. @@http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=500&KEY=&SPID=235&SPSID=4294@@
There won’t be any last-minute travel adjustments, and the Ducks will still fly south on Tuesday. But rather than playing an extra forty minutes of basketball on Wednesday, they’ll be watching, resting and waiting for their quarterfinal opponent to be decided. For Oregon’s seniors, especially, the importance of this extra day of rest cannot be overstated.
“It’s definitely very big,” senior guard Devoe Joseph said. “That was our goal the last few weeks, when we kind of put ourselves out of winning the regular-season championship. So we reached one of our goals in locking up third and not playing on Wednesday. Now we’ve just got to take care of what we can do in the tournament.”
As it turns out, the Ducks will face the winner of a first round matchup between Utah and Colorado — the same two teams they just swept at Matthew Knight Arena over the weekend. Though Colorado (19-11, 11-7 Pac-12) is the overwhelming favorite over bottom feeder Utah (6-24, 3-15 Pac-12), Oregon head coach Dana Altman and the rest of the team will prepare to face either one. Whether the familiarity will prove an advantage or disadvantage is unclear. @@http://pac-12.org/SPORTS/BasketballM/Standings.aspx@@
“I don’t look at it as an advantage or disadvantage,” Joseph said. “We know that team is going to bring it, and whoever wins that game is going to be a good team. So we just gotta be ready to play and take care of business.”
“They just saw us. We just saw them,” Altman said. “It would be an interesting rematch.”
Opponents aside, Oregon will also have to adjust to its status as a top-four seed. Rather than dipping their feet in early and arriving in the second round with momentum, as they did last year, the Ducks will be forced to wait for their opposition to come to them. On the surface, a chance to rest could only be helpful after a long season. Altman, for his part, isn’t so sure. @@http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPSID=4294&SPID=235&DB_OEM_ID=500&Q_SEASON=2010@@
“If you can get through the first one, that’s the big one,” Altman said. “Because the other team has played a game and used to the floor, they’re not that tired. I thought last year we had a little bit of an advantage against UCLA in that second game, because we were ready to play. And they had been waiting for us.”
The Ducks will practice twice in Los Angeles on Tuesday and Wednesday and are slated to play the last scheduled game on Thursday night. For a team that appears to be firing on all cylinders — with Saturday’s 94-48 demolition of Utah just the latest example — the extended wait could prove especially frustrating.
“I think we’ve got the practice gym at USC on Tuesday, practice at USC again on Wednesday and then just the way it works out I think we’ll play the last game Thursday night,” Altman said. “The guys will have to be disciplined, and we’ll be there a long time before we play.”
In senior Garrett Sim’s eyes, though, a little bit of extra time on the pine won’t be enough to quell what Oregon has going of late.
“We’re playing pretty confident, and we’re playing together,” Sim said. “We’re playing good basketball, so that’s what you have to do. You have to make a run in March, and with the position that we’re in, that’s what we’re forced to do. We have to win ball games from here on out. I think we can do it.”