February hasn’t been a kind month to Oregon’s women’s basketball team.
The Ducks lost their leading scorer and assist-maker Nia Jackson in the first game of the month to injury and have dropped all five games in February.
All told, Oregon has lost seven consecutive Pacific-10 Conference games and is in ninth place in the league ahead of only Oregon State. The Ducks endured a seven-game losing streak last season as well, but capped the season with a strong showing in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
At 12-13 (3-11 Pac-10), Oregon’s shot at a second straight postseason berth is pretty much limited to an unlikely Pac-10 tournament championship, which would qualify the Ducks for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament.
The losing streak and Oregon’s late game collapse at Oregon State last weekend have caused more than a couple Duck fans to question the future of head coach Paul Westhead and his staff. While it’s doubtful Westhead will be terminated anytime soon (the three years and nearly two million dollars left on the contract he signed in March in 2009 might prevent anything from happening even if athletic director Rob Mullens wanted to go in a different direction), there’s certainly increased pressure on the coaching staff.
It’s now up to Westhead and his staff to make a determination on how to approach the regular season’s remaining four games.
Coaches in this situation usually have two options from which to choose:
Option one: Coach every game as if a berth to the national title depends on a victory. Re-insert any injured players into the rotation as soon as they’re medically cleared to play. Limit the playing rotation to the top seven players on the team, and do whatever it takes to win as many of the remaining games as possible, even if doing so negatively impacts the future.
Option two: Coach with an eye toward next season. Sit the injured player for the rest of the season, allowing her ample time to rest a pair of gimpy knees. Put an emphasis on getting all the underclassmen playing time to get a better indication of how they fit into the system moving forward.
At this point, it looks like Westhead is trending toward option two. Several games back, he inserted true freshmen Danielle Love and Deanna Weaver into the starting lineup, along with freshman Ariel Thomas, who has received the lion’s share of playing time at point guard in Jackson’s absence.
That leaves Chynna Miley as the only true freshman yet to receive extended minutes.
So really, Westhead’s only major decision is how to handle Jackson.
In the games since her injury, it’s become apparent how critical Jackson is to the success of the team. She’s one of the quickest and most explosive players in the conference, a key part of Westhead’s pressure defense (her speed and fast hands help create turnovers in the press) and an even more important part of the offense.
The stats tell the story on the offensive side of the ball — in the 20 games Jackson played in before her injury, Oregon led the Pac-10 at an average of 80.7 points per game. In the four games since, Oregon has only averaged 65.
While the Thomas has done a commendable job replacing Jackson, no player on Oregon’s roster — and maybe in the entire Pac-10 — has the skill set to replicate what Jackson brings to the court.
For that reason, and because Jackson does have an injury history (she tore a knee ligament before her sophomore season and was forced to take a redshirt year), Westhead should hold Jackson out from play for the remainder of the season.
In many ways, next season will be a defining year for Westhead’s tenure — another three-win Pac-10 campaign probably won’t be enough to satisfy Duck fans and the administration. With a strong recruiting class coming in, the return of Amanda Johnson and the continued maturity of the players currently on the roster, the Ducks will certainly have the talent to improve.
But, any possibility of large-scale improvement goes out the window with no Jackson. And one or two more wins this season isn’t worth jeopardizing next year’s chances of a breakthrough season for the program.
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Drukarev: Oregon’s future success falls squarely on Jackson’s shoulders
Daily Emerald
February 24, 2011
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