Slowly, the bus made its way down Interstate-5.
Drained from a historic weekend, the Oregon men’s basketball players simply wanted to get back to Eugene and rest in their beds.
The euphoria from their grinding 65-62 victory at UCLA and outright Pac-10 title had subsided a tad by the time darkness arrived on Saturday night.
Their celebration had come earlier that day, on the Pauley Pavilion court where they donned white Pac-10 championship hats, and inside their locker room afterward where they reflected on what they had accomplished.
But then came the flight from Los Angeles to Portland. And then came the seemingly endless bus ride from Portland to Eugene that nobody was looking forward to.
“We wanted to stay an extra day in L.A. so we could fly into the Eugene airport and not have to take the bus,” senior Anthony Lever said.
Instead, they hopped aboard and relaxed, waiting eagerly to reach home. Finally, at 10:45 p.m., the bus veered off the freeway and headed into town. It made its way to Centennial Boulevard and took a left turn into the Casanova Center.
“We were on the bus getting ready to go home and go to sleep and then we were like, ‘Huh? What is going on over there?’” Lever said.
“We were like, ‘Are those really people?’” Luke Ridnour said.
Yes, those were people. Lots of people. Lots of happy people.
Suddenly, the bus full of tired basketball players had been recharged. The players all jumped out of their seats to see if this was for real. The Duck mascot signaled the bus toward the cluster of fans.
Cheers erupted outside. A tape of the fight song blasted through somebody’s car stereo. The bus came to a halt.
One by one, the coaches and players walked out and high-fived the masses, realizing that they were in the middle of a late-night rally in honor of them.
There were students. There were elderly people. There were families with little kids in tow. By the way, it was also quite chilly.

“It’s pretty exciting, and it shows how much the community supports us and how much it means to everybody,” Ridnour said. “We didn’t think there were would be people out this late in the cold.
“We had no idea.”
What the Saturday night greeting did was reinforce for these Ducks how special a season they are a part of.
They can hear all they want about being the program’s first Pac-10 champions in 57 years. About winning at UCLA for the first time since 1984. And about being considered the best Oregon team since the legendary 1938-39 NCAA championship team.
But those are just numbers. Actually seeing the reaction of their fans and talking with them and signing autographs for children — and grown men — is what lets the significance of their road trip begin to set in.
“Before, it really didn’t hit us,” senior Freddie Jones said. “Now, to see all these people, man, it really helps out a lot.”
The weekend began with Jones hitting the clutch game-winner to lift the Ducks to the 67-65 victory at USC on Thursday. That win clinched at least a share of the conference championship and allowed the team to relax a little bit and revel in their success.
“I can’t even begin to explain the attitude we had in that locker room after the game when Freddie hit that shot,” senior Kristian Christensen said. “It was mayhem. We were all crazy. It was insane. We were dancing. We had coach (Ernie) Kent dancing. We had people screaming.
“And to top it off with today’s win at UCLA, it’s just amazing. Amazing.”
Of course, the work isn’t done in March. The Ducks head right back to Los Angeles on Tuesday to get ready for the March 7-9 Pac-10 Tournament at the Staples Center. A week later, they’ll be playing somewhere in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, and it’s looking like that may take place just further down
I-5 in Sacramento.
So while Saturday’s mingling between players and fans was indeed a celebration of things already accomplished, there also was the strong sense of optimism for things yet to come.
“We still have a lot of basketball to play, and we’re looking at the bigger picture,” Jones said. “We’re trying to be in Atlanta on the first weekend in April.”
One can only imagine the size of the rally that would greet the team home from that trip since, after all, Atlanta’s the site of this year’s Final Four.
The team bus would probably be replaced by a trio of limousines that day.