During his Monday team meeting, Ernie Kent displayed images to his men’s basketball team of what it’s playing for this week.
“Coach showed us pictures of the Pac-10 championship rings and it gave us more incentive to go out there and get it,” senior Anthony Lever said.
So what prompted the Oregon head coach to do so?
“Sometimes you need a visual — especially men, we’re very visual-oriented and we need to be able to look at what it is we’re going after,” Kent said Tuesday.
Oregon has the opportunity to grab a piece of its first league championship since the 1944-45 Ducks tied for the Pacific Coast Conference Northern Division title. With a victory at USC on Thursday night, the 13th-ranked Ducks would clinch at least a tie for first and get the No. 1 seed in the Pac-10 Tournament.
Should the Ducks beat the Trojans and then get past UCLA on Saturday, the championship crown would belong solely to Oregon.
“Ever since our win over Washington and especially in our meetings yesterday, we’ve been really focused,” center Chris Christoffersen said. “We got together and said, ‘OK, it’s up to us now. It’s in our hands.’
“It doesn’t matter what anyone else does, it comes down to what we do.”
And fortunately for Ducks fans, they’ll have an opportunity to watch Thursday’s game thanks to a late agreement by Fox Sports Net and the Pac-10 on Monday.
The Stanford-Arizona game was selected earlier this month as the FSN national telecast and will remain so everywhere but the Northwest. The Oregon-USC game, which was already being broadcast by Fox Sports Net West 2 in Los Angeles, will now be sent to Fox Sports Net Northwest as well.

Mother knows best
A little motherly care helped Christoffersen fight through a nasty sickness last week. The senior had his parents visiting from Denmark and was disappointed that he wasn’t at full strength to play well in front of them.
“It was frustrating, but I’m finally getting healthy,” Christoffersen said. “I had a cold, which turned into a case of bronchitis. I had problems breathing. My throat was all clogged up. But my mom’s tea helped get me going again.
“She always tries to pamper me when she visits.”
Christoffersen scored a combined eight points in just 28 minutes of action during the weekend.
“We knew he was in trouble, but I wanted to play him a little bit because of his parents being here,” Kent said. “He looks a lot better than he did last week, that’s for sure.”
The 7-foot-2 center says he’s now 100 percent and excited for this weekend’s challenge.

Dunks and drafts
Senior Freddie Jones impressed many Saturday with his thundering dunks, even those who have seen him play for years.
“I was checking into the game at the scorer’s table when he dunked over (Washington’s) Errol Knight and I had to jump off the floor,” Lever said. “I felt like a cheerleader. It was amazing. The people behind me were telling me to sit down.”
Jones was invited to participate in the ESPN Slam Dunk contest that will take place at the Final Four in Atlanta. He’ll also play for the college all-stars that weekend in a game against the Harlem Globetrotters.
Jones will then fly to Portsmouth, Va., for a pre-NBA Draft camp that takes place April 3-6. Christoffersen was invited to the camp as well.
In the draft projections on nbadraft.net, Jones is a first round selection (No. 24) by San Antonio and Christoffersen is a second round pick (No. 52) by Milwaukee.

Bracketology madness
ESPN’s Dick Vitale wrote in his latest column that the Ducks are one of 12 teams that he believes can win the NCAA championship.
“On a neutral floor, the Cool Hand Lukes along with Freddy Jones and Chris Christoffersen, give coach Ernie Kent’s Ducks a legitimate shot at the Final Four,” Vitale wrote.
Yes, Vitale misspelled Freddie — again.
Also on ESPN.com, Oregon jumped one seed in the latest “Bracketology,” where the entire NCAA Tournament field is predicted every week until the real bracket is announced March 10.
Oregon is a fourth seed and is projected to play 13th-seeded UNC-Wilmington on March 14 at Arco Arena in Sacramento, Ca.
The Seahawks (19-9) can boast something that Oregon can’t — a win at Minnesota, where the Ducks lost in December.