Saturday’s loss to in-state rival Oregon State seemed like the last straw for a lot of Oregon fans.
Fresh off a two-game sweep of UCLA and USC, the Ducks were faced with a six days off to prepare for the game in Corvallis. They had a “great week of practice” according to Ernie Kent, and yet, the Ducks still managed to fall on their faces. They lost by 20 points and it was Kent’s first season sweep at the hands of the Beavers in his career.
The word to describe this team right now is inconsistent. To start the season, Oregon went 3-0, only to fall to 4-4 after the team lost four of its next five games. Then came an impressive six-game winning streak, including two wins in Washington. This was followed by a five-game losing streak and then a sweep of the L.A. schools.
As it stands right now, the Ducks (12-10 overall, 4-6 Pacific-10 Conference) are two-and-a-half games out of first place. In a year where every team seems to be playing inconsistently, it’s playing to Oregon’s performance. However, if the team does not put together a few-game winning streak, the chances of a legitimate run to the NCAA Tournament are gone.
“We are trying to put it into the front of our minds that if we win these next two games, we are right back in the mix of things,” sophomore Jeremy Jacob said.
But the Oregon State game still is a concern for Oregon, which shot a season-low 29.8 percent from the field. The Ducks had just 14 field goals in the game and six in the second half. Senior guard Tajuan Porter managed just three points on 1-of-6 shooting and sophomore Matthew Humphrey was 3-of-11.
For Kent, it was a combination of the poor shooting and guard play that led to the bad performance, and he says the team won’t change anything before this week’s game against Arizona and Arizona State.
“No,” Kent said when asked if his team needs to make changes. “We played great against UCLA and USC and we made the changes we needed to make, we had a great week of practice and we didn’t handle ourselves well in that environment. We did not have good guard play and we know that. We’re not blaming anyone. We didn’t shoot the ball well either.”
Jacob said it was the pressure of the zone that did it for him. As a big man, his presence inside was diminished by the effectiveness of the Beaver zone, which limits inside play. He said he’d prefer to play against man-to-man defense.
“I’d have to say the zone (created all of our problems),” Jacob said. “The zone created that right there. Problems all over the place. And Malcolm wasn’t able to penetrate and dish like he usually does.”
“When you look at what they did to us, we didn’t have that many assists because of the way their pressure bothered us,” Kent said. “We still had shots and opportunities to score; we just didn’t shoot the ball very well and handle the adversity of the game very well. That led to not having a lot of assists because we just didn’t have a lot of basketball plays.”
Jacob also said it wasn’t a step back, it was just a matter of confidence. Confidence is something Kent said was very important, and it has been a big focus of his since Saturday.
“It was the adversity of the game,” Kent said. “We look at tape and sometimes our kids just don’t handle it well, and you stay with them and continue to bring them back, bring them back, bring them back and soon enough they’ll come back and play well. That’s the consistency of it all. Being poised and handling themselves in adverse situations.”
Confidence will be big for the Ducks in Thursday’s game in Tucson, which has one of the rowdiest crowds in the conference. There will be 14,545 fans packed in the seats, and the noise will be deafening.
Kent said the only way to deal with it is be mentally strong and deal with it.
“You don’t simulate it,” he said. “It’s called experience. You have to go through it and handle it and everything.”
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