The seeds (both figuratively and NCAA bracket-wise) that were planted in the back of peoples’ minds in 2004 – when Oregon introduced its greatest recruiting class – finally blossomed Sunday afternoon.
Those expectations hovered above the team for three seasons, but yesterday everyone invested in this team saw those expectations materialize, and nobody seemed to be in a bad mood, save for when Ryan Appleby appeared on the Ducks’ season highlight reel.
While the team should congratulate itself for obliterating its opponents in the conference tournament and earning a No. 3 seed, something I highly doubted last week, Oregon’s McArthur Court selection party seemed too much like an end-of-season, let’s-hand-out-the-rewards celebration, at least from the fan’s perspective.
Oregon, meanwhile, remained stoic for the most part until its name was announced, and rightfully so. Although the Ducks were guaranteed a berth, and a high seed at that, their faces were unflinching as if they still believed they could be spurned by the selection committee.
Maybe that’s to be expected for a team that’s been out of the tournament since 2003. Maybe fans feel like just reaching the NCAA Tournament is reason enough to celebrate that this team has already given us a season to remember. Any wins in the tournament are just extra reasons for celebration.
Thankfully, the team doesn’t feel that way and I never expected they would. With as much hype as this team has received over the years, the players know they need to win tournament games to validate all the attention. I’ve tried to quell the hype machine over the weeks, stating people should be happy with the fact that the Ducks are heading into the tournament. I’ll retract those statements now.
I said those things before the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament. I was basing my predictions on a team that looked tired and uninspired at times this season. But Ernie Kent flipped some sort of switch and Oregon looked like a juggernaut against the three teams they played. It wasn’t that each of them were having off-games, but Oregon’s offense could not be stopped by any means, and their defense suffocated every opponent. Playing like they did, with seemingly little effort, they destroyed teams that gave them difficulty earlier in the season and emerged as the team that everyone’s been waiting to see.
Where’s that team been all season? Why did it wait until March to start beating league opponents by more than 10 points?
Whatever the case may be, it really doesn’t matter. Oregon’s peaking at the right time, and they’ve given me reason to believe they’re capable of making a run to the Final Four. For weeks, I thought a Sweet 16 appearance seemed like the best-case scenario, but my opinion of this team has vastly changed over the past three games.
The Ducks can dominate. We’ve known they can shoot the ball well on occasion but haven’t seen that combined with a stingy defense. Playing that well on both sides of the court during March Madness would guarantee victories against the toughest teams in the bracket.
If Oregon’s going to play deep in March, they need to exhibit the same type of intensity and near-perfect style of play to make this a season to truly remember.
And they shouldn’t buy into my hype.
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