It’s the men’s basketball media day, but the players could care less about the media.
There they sit, in the middle of McArthur Court, with the Eugene sports media hovering like flies around them. Someone cracks a joke, and the rest of the players laugh. This is the first time they’ve been together in their new uniforms on Mac Court — but you’d think they were fraternity brothers, getting together to shoot the breeze about basketball and girls.
Believe it or not, this is how head coach Ernie Kent is going to get his team to win basketball games.
On the surface of things, it looks like Oregon could be shoved back to the middle of the Pacific-10 Conference this year, after tasting the top just a year ago. The Ducks lost three key players: Point guard Darius Wright, who ran the show even if he didn’t put up the best numbers on the team; A.D. Smith, the workhorse and fan favorite; and Alex Scales, the flashy go-to guy.
At the same time, the rest of the Pac-10 is only getting older and wiser. The freshmen — Stanford’s Casey Jacobsen, UCLA’s Jason Kapono and Arizona’s Jason Gardner — are sophomores now. The leaders — Southern California’s Brian Scalabrine, Arizona’s Loren Woods and California’s Sean Lampley — are ready to step into their roles even more this season. Stanford lost their star center, Mark Madsen, to graduation. Big deal. Try losing your starting power forward, your point guard and your leading scorer.
So how will Kent deal with the loss?
Junior guard Anthony Norwood can answer that question.
“We’ve got a lot of good people,” Norwood said. “If you get good people with great character, it’ll come onto the court also, and I think that’s what we’ve done. I think it’s going to be a big year for all of us. A lot of people are just sleeping on the Ducks [and] what they’ve lost.
“It’s just a matter of all of us stepping up.”
Norwood is one of a host of players that will play more minutes now that Scales, Smith and Wright are gone. Senior forward Bryan Bracey, junior guard Freddie Jones, senior center Flo Hartenstein and senior guard David Jackson will all try to fill the gaps that the graduating class left behind.
But right now, it’s not the “who” Kent is worried about; it’s the “when.”
“I’m excited about where this basketball team will eventually end up when it comes together,” Kent said. “This will be the best chemistry that I will have here at Oregon. It’s going to enable us to come together a lot quicker.”
The Duck players are taking a specific chemistry class with Kent as their professor making the demonstration for his students: Mixing up different chemicals to get the right combination.
“We had a recruit, and where most teams would take him out, show him the town, the players took him back to the gym,” Kent said. “That’s the type of chemistry that’s brewing here.”
Even the new recruits themselves can sense what’s coming, and they love it.
“Everybody gets along, and we all hang out off the court,” freshman guard Luke Jackson said. “If you get along off the court, it’s going to be easier for you to put trust in the other players. Everyone’s working toward the same goal.”
So, Oregon’s chemistry is becoming a little clearer. Kent has somehow assembled a team that needed to incorporate its newcomers as soon as possible, and has already done that. He has assembled a team that will be overlooked, and will play from behind, respect-wise, all season. He has assembled a team that will need to lean on each other in order to win, and they are already leaning.
But for all their talk about chemistry and coming together, the Ducks seem to think they need a leader, and everyone wants to vote himself into the position.
“I just happen to be the guy leading this team,” Kent said.
“I’m going to step it up,” Norwood said. “I’m going to lead by example. Once every individual knows what they’ve got to do, it helps the team get that much better.”
“I realize that to help the team out even more, I need to step up and play my game,” Jones said.
“I’m working hard to be a leader,” Bracey said. “I’m leading by example.”
The fight to determine a leader for this team could be tougher than the fight for a Pac-10 Championship.
Will team chemistry be enough to lift Oregon to another top-three finish in the Pac-10? Only time, and a few beakers full of chemicals, will tell.