It might be a little early to start calling this part of the season “the home stretch” for the Oregon men’s basketball team.
But as they head to Corvallis on Saturday, the Ducks need to think about stretching — and flexing — their muscles for the last part of the season.
Oregon sat fifth in the conference before Thursday’s games. The Ducks are 16-6 overall, but are only 6-5 in Pacific-10 Conference play with seven games remaining. Their remaining schedule is littered with potential land mines, including road games at upset-happy Washington, as well as Arizona State and Arizona.
Not to mention the potential land mine in Corvallis.
“Oregon State is a much-improved basketball team since the last time we played them, and they continue to get better,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said.
The Beavers have turned things around, slightly, since the Ducks faced them Jan. 18. That Oregon State team was 0-4 in Pac-10 play and was struggling to learn first-year coach Jay John’s system.
But right after Oregon beat Oregon State 79-68 at McArthur Court, the Beavers went on a four-game win streak at home against the Washington schools and on the road at the Los Angeles schools.
Since then, Oregon State dropped games to California and Stanford by 13 and 11 points, respectively. But the Beavers aren’t the same group of players that started the season so poorly.
“They’re going to have a great crowd, and the fact that they have three (seniors) who have not won against us makes it that much more difficult for us,” Kent said.
Those three seniors — Philip Ricci, Brian Jackson and Jimmy Haywood — have played in seven Civil Wars without winning one. The Ducks have won 18 of the past 19 matchups between the squads dating back to the 1993-94 season.
But those three seniors have a good chance to win their last one, especially if all three play well. Sort of like Cal’s “Big Three,” Oregon State’s big threesome accounts for most of the team’s scoring. All together, they score 42.1 of the Beavers’ 69.6 points per game, a 60-percent clip.
When the teams first played, Oregon State’s big threesome scored 45 points, mostly because of Ricci’s 24.
“We want to win,” Haywood told reporters Wednesday. “This is the last chance we’ve got.”
As for Oregon, the Ducks will welcome a finally healthy Luke Jackson back into the lineup. Jackson had the stitches removed from his right ring finger after Saturday’s loss to Cal, and should be fully healthy for Saturday’s game in Corvallis.
Jackson scored 27 points in a gutsy performance against UCLA one week after suffering the injury, but since then has scored 40 points in three games. He had only nine in Oregon’s loss to Cal on Saturday.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, redshirt freshman center Matt Short is only having more impact as the season wears on. Short has started the last two games in place of the struggling Brian Helquist, and is expected to start again against Oregon State. He had a career-high 11 points against Cal and is a presence for Oregon inside.
Short will have his hands full against Ricci on Saturday.
“(Ricci) is one of our main go-to guys, and (Oregon’s) big guys are not go-to guys,” John said. “But they are big bodies, which makes it hard to score down low.”
For the Ducks, the Civil War falls into the “must win” column, and they will need their big guys to perform if they want to do it. Oregon is 4-4 away from McArthur Court on the season, and only 1-3 on the Pac-10 road. With five road games remaining, the Ducks have precious little time to sway the NCAA Tournament selection committee, which frowns upon poor road records. The game Saturday is the first of three on the road for Oregon.
“We have to win all three, but we have to take it game-by-game,” Duck guard Andre Joseph said.
The Civil War will tip off at 6 p.m. Saturday at Gill Coliseum. The game is set to be broadcast on the Beaver Sports Network, whose local affiliate is KVAL.