The University of Oregon Men’s basketball team was one of the last eight teams left standing in last year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. Though they fell to the eventual tournament champion, the Florida Gators, in the Elite 8, they did show the college basketball world that heart can matter just as much as height and that the relentlessly quick team from Eugene with the fearless perimeter game should not be taken lightly.
However, after a 29-8 record, a Pac-10 conference tournament crown, and three wins in the Big Dance in 2006-2007, being overlooked by opponents is not likely anything they’ll have to worry about this season. What they do need to worry about is how to replace the one player who simply would not allow them to fail last year, Aaron Brooks.
Oregon’s fiery senior point guard defined the team’s season a year ago with two monumental game-winning shots. The first, a buzzer-beater at home against then top-ranked UCLA last January, sky rocketed the team’s confidence and national credibility. The second, a dagger on the road at Arizona a week later, silenced any remaining doubts.
However, Brooks, who led the Ducks in points (17.7 ppg), assists (4.4 apg), and cool, parlayed his magical season into an NBA roster spot with Houston Rockets. And, without doubt, it was Brooks who made Oregon go last season. He played over 36 minutes a game for the Ducks, shooting over 40% from 3-point range and over 80% from the line, and his assist-to-turnover ratio was nearly 2:1. Not only did he know how to protect the basketball, he knew how put it into the basket or set-up his teammates to do so with impressive efficiency, and he was on the floor for over 90% of each game to make sure that happened.
The good news for Oregon in 2007-2008 is that they will have three seniors in the starting lineup ready to help fill that leadership void – G/F Malik Hairston, G/F Bryce Taylor, and F Maarty Leunen. Of the three, Hairston is the most dynamic. While a heel injury dampened his 2006-2007 season and caused him to miss 10 games, he bounced back enough down the stretch to give a glimpse of his impressive overall game. At 6’6”, he has enough speed and lift to do a lot of different things on the floor. He averaged six boards a game to highlight his ability to play inside and hit over 42% of 3-point shots to showcase his perimeter game. In fact, his 52% overall shooting from the floor led the team and reinforced his ever-improving court sense and shot selection. Fully healthy, Hairston will be the one his teammates look to as a team leader on the stat sheet and in the locker room.
For a game, Bryce Taylor was perfect. Literally. In the Pac-10 conference tournament final against USC, Taylor hit all 11 of his shots from the field, including an astonishing 7-for-7 from 3-point range, and was perfect in his three attempts from the free throw line. His 32-point demolition of the Trojans gave Oregon a convincing 81-57 win en route the conference tournament title. While Taylor’s career-night didn’t necessarily translate to those kind of superstar numbers night-in, night-out (how could they?), his improvement from his sophomore to junior seasons was remarkable, nonetheless. The 6’5” swingman improved his scoring average by nearly five points a game (from 9.3 to 14.1 ppg), raised his overall shooting percentage by over 10% (from 40.6% to 51.7%), and improved his 3-point accuracy by nearly 16% (from 26.7% to 42.2%). As it is, Taylor has transformed into a dangerous scorer with a versatile arsenal. If he continues to improve, he could really be lethal in teaming with Hairston to give the Ducks a deadly 1-2 scoring punch.
Maarty Leunen was really given an impossible task last season. The 6’9”, 215-pound forward was asked to carry Oregon’s front court all by himself. While he was out-jumped and out-muscled in nearly every game he played, he was never outplayed. He simply outlasted taller, stronger opponents. Tireless and fearless, he would slowly wear them down – minute after minute, game after game. And when they weren’t looking, he would sneak out to the perimeter and knock down a three. Like Taylor, Leunen’s improvement as a player exploded from his sophomore to his junior season. In achieving career-highs in scoring average (10.8), rebounds per game (8.2), assists per game (2.1), and steals per game (1.4), he fully demonstrated his remarkable versatility. Perhaps, most surprising was his improvement as a long-range shooter. As a sophomore, he made a pedestrian 28% of his tries from beyond the arc. As a junior, he dropped over 41% of those shots on opponents, and most never even knew what hit them.
In fact, Oregon’s perimeter game was their trademark last season, and befitting a team from Oregon, they made it rain buckets. Dropping shots from the rafters like it was monsoon season in Singapore, everyone who touched the ball for the Ducks could hit a 3-pointer. All five starters made better than 40% of their treys, and they needed each one. With an undersized lineup that relied on speed to create open looks, they couldn’t allow a game to be decided on the glass. Missed shots meant rebounds, and the Ducks knew they how little chance they had to win that way. So, they ran and shot. And made.
And few people on the floor ran faster or shot quicker than the smallest player out there, 5’6” freshman Tajuan Porter. Porter needed that quickness because his window for an open look closed faster than anyone else’s. Although he started the year with little more expectation on him than to be a safety valve for Aaron Brooks to catch his breath for a few minutes a game, his deadly shooting touch earned him significant playing time. He averaged 14.6 points a game, shooting better than 41% from long distance and better than 90% from the line. When open, there was little question how good the little man with the big jumper was. His crowning moment was a 33-point barrage (on 8-of-12 shooting from 3-point range) against UNLV in Oregon’s Sweet 16 win over the Rebs in the NCAA Tournament.
This year, however, Porter will not only be expected to pick up where he left off shooting the rock but also to assume the team’s point guard duties. Can he make the transition from a shoot-only player to a pass-and-shoot player? He needs to, because the only other point guard on the roster is true freshman Kamyron Brown. While Brown has loads of potential with great court vision and a deft passing touch, asking him to run the team if Porter is slow to make the transition from off-guard to the point would be asking a bit much too soon. However, Brown certainly has the ability to play his way into more minutes at the point (shifting Porter and his deadly outside game to the 2) as the season progresses.
In addition to Brown, the Ducks’ bench looks to be much stronger this year.
The Invisible Man is finally visible. JC transfer Frantz Dorsainvil looked like a perfect fit for the Ducks last season. At 6’8”, 270 pounds, the athletic Dorsainvil would have given Maarty Leunen the front court help the team so desperately needed. Unfortunately, a funny thing happened on the way to Mac Court. The prized JC transfer, a native of Haiti who grew up in Montreal, got tangled up in Visa-related red tape and never made it to Eugene. Luckily, all of that crimson adhesive was somehow detangled in the off-season, and the Ducks finally have their highly coveted athletic big man on the roster.
Another transfer, 6’6” swingman Churchill Odia, may also see some significant playing time. Odia, who transferred from Xavier in 2005, played limited minutes last year, averaging just 1.8 points per game in just over nine minutes a contest. However, in his second season in head coach Ernie Kent’s system, he may find his way into the rotation more often, especially in light of the transfer of Chamberlain Oguchi. Oguchi, the very definition of a streak shooter, never found his touch last season. After establishing himself as a dangerous 3-point threat in 2005-2006, he hit just 26% of his long-range shots in 2006-2007 and then transferred to Illinois State in the off-season. So, Odia, recruited as a point guard by Xavier, may be the one who picks up Oguchi’s minutes this year or help in the point guard rotation, but he’ll have plenty of competition for those minutes.
Another swingman, 6’5” redshirt freshman LeKendric Longmire, is also in the running for guard minutes. His athleticism and defense may win him some time, and defense became a surprising strength for the undersized Ducks late in the season. The team’s ability to shut down some of the Pac-10’s top scorers in the conference tournament jump started their NCAA tourney run. So, Longmire’s defensive potential may help to continue that trend. Early season games will likely sort out the minutes, but Longmire will have a chance to claim some of them.
With so many wing players, Ernie Kent’s squad might as well be playing in Buffalo, because they have yet another “tweener”, highly-touted freshman Drew Viney, whose impressive perimeter game fits in perfectly with Oregon’s high-powered long-range offense. With so much riding on getting outside shots to fall, the Ducks always need marksmen, and Viney is definitely that. It will just be a matter of how quickly he finds his range that determines his role on the team.
Along with Dorsainvil, sophomore forward Joevan Catron will get quality minutes in the front court. Last season, as a freshman, Catron saw his playing time increase as he showed his ability to defend in the paint and fight for rebounds. Although just 6’6”, he played bigger than that and wasn’t bashful about the physical nature of the interior.
Besides sitting at the end of Ernie Kent’s bench last year, 6’10” Mitch Platt and 7’0” Ray Schafer seemed to offer little more than 10 fouls and traffic in the post. The nature of Oregon’s high-octane offense didn’t help them get any closer to the scorer’s table, either. However, Platt’s a somewhat intriguing player. The fifth-year senior has had some productive minutes for the team but missed all of the 2005-2006 season with injury. As a freshman, he did play enough to average five points and four boards a game.
Of course, head coach Ernie Kent’s philosophy in recent years has been all about speed, and, frankly, tall players just tend to slow things down. And the methodology to Kent’s basketball madness can be traced directly back to his own playing days. In the mid-70’s, Kent was a player at Oregon. His team at the time was nicknamed the “Kamikaze Kids” for their aggressive, all-out style and their knack for sacrificing their bodies (via taking charges) on the floor. They were a frenetic, relentless bunch led by their all-everything guard Ron Lee. Forwards Greg Ballard and Stu Jackson were Lee’s top lieutenants, and Kent joined the fray off the bench.
The experience must have resonated, because Kent’s teams play with that same kind of fury. Although this year’s team is lacking their Ron Lee, Houston-bound Aaron Brooks, they haven’t lost their speed or intensity. With three senior leaders returning and Tajuan Porter with a full year of experience on his resume, they have enough to overcome the loss of Brooks. It is the addition of Dorsainvil and the high-ceiling potential of Kamyron Brown and Drew Viney that may be the keys for an even deeper run into March Madness.
So, there’s no sneaking up on anyone for the Ducks this season. However, that’s ok, because they can always just run past them on their way to another 3-point shot. And it all starts this Saturday night at the Pit against Pepperdine. Mac Court will be rocking, and, I suspect, it will, like the team itself, continue to rock all the way into March.
As the saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Of course, college basketball is neither. So, getting close to an NCAA college basketball championship without winning it isn’t particularly satisfying.
Although Oregon reached the Elite Eight for the first time since 2002, the Ducks 85-77 loss to the defending champion Florida Gators left a decidedly bitter taste to an otherwise remarkable season.
And the Gators left little doubt as to why they are reigning champs with every reason to believe that another title is within reach. Speed and desire had gotten Oregon into the Midwest regional final, but Florida’s size and strength finally proved too much. Al Horford and Joakim Noah have been giving opponents fits all season long. Though Horford was largely neutralized, Noah was not. He dominated in the paint with 14 points and 14 boards.
However, Florida beat the Ducks at their own game, as it was the Gators' perimeter play that ultimately made the difference. The 3-point shooting of Lee Humphrey and Taurean Green gave the Gators an added dimension for which the Ducks had no answer. Humphrey, in particular, was deadly from beyond the arc, hitting on 7-of-13 three-point attempts and finished with 23 points.
Conversely, Oregon’s dangerous long distance shooting finally failed them. Tajuan Porter, who had been red-hot from 3-point range of late, never found any shooting rhythm against Florida and made only 2-of-10 from long range. Aaron Brooks, in his final collegiate game, paced Oregon with 27 points, and Malik Hairston added 18 points and 5 rebounds with some strong inside play. However, it wasn't enough.
So, the Gators move on to Atlanta and the bright lights of the Final Four while Oregon goes home to the rainy Northwest.
However, Ernie Kent’s team definitely has a lot of which to be proud. They were supposed to be too short, too reliant on perimeter shooting, and too thin on talent to be competitive. Not only were the Ducks competitive this season, they reached a place that only seven other teams in college basketball could similarly claim. And they got there largely on heart.
Oregon consistently played taller, stronger opponents and consistently found ways to beat them. Senior guard Aaron Brooks led the way, calming his team when games got tight, hitting game-winning shots against UCLA and Arizona that changed the complexion of the season, and teaching his teammates that they were good enough to expect to win.
Freshman guard Tajuan Porter wasn’t even expected to play much this year. He was projected as a reserve mostly to be used to spell Brooks for a few minutes a game. Instead, the 5’6” lightning quick scorer demonstrated a remarkable ability to find his shot from 3-point range. And Porter’s 3-pointers became a critical part of Oregon’s offense. In the Ducks’ Sweet 16 win over UNLV, the little man with the scary outside game played bigger than anyone else on the floor, scoring 33 points.
At 6’9”, Maarty Leunen was given a virtually impossible task. He was supposed to be Oregon’s entire front court, all by himself. To his credit, he willed himself to body opponents on defense and grab rebounds and score points despite being undersized in almost every game. Despite all of that, Leunen could also step away from the paint and knock down a three. His versatility and tireless effort embodied Oregon’s season-long play pretty well.
So, congrats to the Florida Gators on advancing to the Final Four, but congrats are also in order to the Oregon Ducks for their unlikely, magical run to the Elite Eight. So, as the curtain comes down on Oregon’s season, one can only hope for an encore of an even more successful nature next season.
This is likely the game they most wanted and most dreaded in equal measure. The little engine that could is steaming down the tracks directly in the path of the big, bad locomotive that already did. The upstart Oregon Ducks are in the Elite Eight but are decidedly looking up at the defending National Champion Florida Gators, both figuratively and literally, on the eve of their Midwest regional final game in this year’s NCAA tournament.
The Gators have arguably two of the most versatile big men in the country, Al Horford and Joakim Noah. Horford, in particular, was devastating in Florida’s Sweet 16 match-up against Butler, scoring 16 points to go along with 4 blocks and 7 boards. Meanwhile, Horford’s front court teammate Noah averages over 12 points a game on better than 60% shooting and gathers in better than 8 boards a game as well as averaging 1.8 blocks a contest.
The rest of Billy Donovan’s starting five isn’t too shabby, either. Junior guard Taurean Green scored 17 against Butler, going 5-for-8 from 3-point range. More importantly (and impressively), he didn’t a single turnover in 38 minutes on the floor. Green’s back court teammate, senior Lee Humphrey, is also a perimeter threat, hitting on 45% of his chances from beyond the arc for the year. Forward Corey Brewer rounds out the starting squad for the Gators and is tied for second on the team in scoring average, dropping in better than 13 points a game.
And all five players already have championship rings.
Meanwhile, Oregon advanced to the match-up with the defending champs by dispatching a tough UNLV team. Freshman guard Tajuan Porter continued to impress and torched the Rebs by scoring 33 points on 8-of-12 shooting from 3-point range. And he wasn’t alone. As a team, the Ducks were 13-of-23 (56.5%) from long distance against UNLV.
In addition, Oregon had some success in the paint as well. Malik Hairston had 14 points and 11 boards, while unheralded Marty Leunen chipped in with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Although Oregon’s leading scorer, Aaron Brooks, was held to just 8 points on 2-of-8 shooting, he had only two turnovers in 37 minutes, and it was his senior leadership that held the team together as UNLV made a furious second half comeback.
So, now the Ducks bring their red-hot perimeter attack against Florida’s all-around fury. It will be the quickness of Brooks and Porter looking for space to launch 3’s versus the scary athleticism of Horford and Noah in the paint. It will also be (perhaps, in a more telling way) the varied scoring threats of Hairston, Leunen, and Bryce Taylor against the underrated but highly effective perimeter play of Green, Humphrey, and Brewer.
Still, the Gators’ experience, height, and athleticism are telling. The defending champs have remained the odds-on favorites to reclaim the crown for the balance of the tournament. So, in the most defining moment of their season, the Ducks will likely need to play a nearly flawless game to have a chance. However, as their 29-7 season records attests, they have enough talent to do that.
Oregon just needs to channel their inner Al Michaels. Do you believe in miracles? If so, that impossible dream may just come true.
When former University of Utah basketball coach and current ESPN college basketball pundit Rick Majerus mispronounced “Oregon” (as in “Or-ee-gone”) in making his prediction for the Oregon-Winthrop match-up in the Round of 32 of the NCAA tournament this weekend, something seemed amiss. I####uy botches the name of an entire state, most of what follows has to be looked at as somewhat suspect. So, when Majerus lauded Winthrop’s tenacity and dangerous inside-outside threats and dismissed Oregon as a vulnerable perimeter-only team, his analysis seemed shaky, if only because he hadn’t even been able to pronounce one of the teams correctly.
On a separate segment, longtime college hoops personalities Digger Phelps and #### Vitale echoed Majerus’ evaluation of the match-up: Winthrop – tenacious, versatile; Oregon – one-dimensional, inconsistent. And Winthrop had the “Cinderella” factor going for them. As an 11-seed, the Eagles were one of only two double-digit seeds still left in the tournament field. However, as recently as last year, another 11th-seeded team, George Mason, reeled off a shocking string of wins to advance all the way to the Final Four. So, the sentiment was there for an unlikely school from a small conference (Big South) to knock off one the “power” conference big shots.
And in fairness to Majerus, Digger, and Dickie V, Oregon (as in “Or-eh-gun”) didn’t play well in their first-round game against Miami (Ohio), barely edging the heavy underdog Redhawks. Meanwhile, Winthrop simply outplayed a very good Notre Dame team, getting 24 points from center Craig Bradshaw and 20 from guard Torrell Martin.
However, Oregon reached the NCAA tournament as a #3-seed for a reason. They’re a pretty good basketball team. Although they struggled against Miami (Ohio), shooting just 5-for-16 from 3-point range, senior guard Aaron Brooks never panicked and never let his teammates to do so, either. Brooks led the Ducks with 18 points, was perfect from the free throw line, and had only two turnovers to go along with five assists. So, even when the perimeter shots aren’t falling, Oregon can stay in games a lot longer than most, because they are very good at protecting the basketball and can knock down their free throws. And when the 3’s are falling, the Ducks can score with the best of them.
Just ask Winthrop.
Though the Eagles had looked very impressive against Notre Dame and were carrying a gaudy 29-4 record into the game against Oregon, they just couldn’t get untracked against the Ducks. Oregon’s quick, swarming defense gave the Big South champions problems, and Bradshaw and Martin, who had combined to score 44 against Notre Dame, were held to 25 points on 9-of-24 shooting.
Conversely, the Ducks found the long-range shooting touch they had been missing in their opening-round game. Against Winthrop, Oregon hit on 48% of their shots beyond the arc. Brooks was 5-of-9 from 3-point range, while Tajuan Porter hit on 4-of-8 long distance shots. The result was a convincing 14-point win. And just like that, two of the smallest players on the floor rang midnight on Winthrop’s Cinderella season.
Credit the Eagles on a brilliant year, though. It was a season that saw a conference championship title and one of the few upsets in this year’s NCAA tournament.
For the Ducks, their season continues. A tough match-up beckons with another team fresh off a big upset win. The UNLV Runnin' Rebs are not the same snarling, high-flying machine that Tark the Shark took to the NCAA title in 1990 with Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon intimidating opponents into the fetal position. However, Lon Kruger’s current UNLV team is a tough bunch. They rely on Kevin Kruger (Lon’s son), Wendell White, and Wink Adams for points and Gaston Essengue and Joel Anthony to sway shots away in the paint. And they play tough defense. They’ve already sent Georgia Tech and #2-seed Wisconsin home and are as hungry as any team left in the field.
Meanwhile, Oregon enters the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2002 with an eight-game winning streak and a rediscovered outside shooting touch. Brooks and Porter pace the offense but Bryce Taylor, Malik Hairston, and Maarty Leunen can be dangerous as well.
It shapes up to be a fast-paced showdown in St. Louis for the right to move on to the Elite Eight. And let’s just hope that being among the final 16 teams still standing in college basketball has earned the Ducks a little prestige, like having pundits pronounce their name correctly while making predictions, even if those predictions lack that same degree of accuracy.
College basketball is king. At least for three weeks in March. Three weeks of buzzer beaters, stunning upsets, nerve wracking close calls, and devastating blowouts.
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament can make legends out of unknown players and turn stars into goats. It can provide visibility to invisible teams and send them just as quickly back into the abyss. It is college basketball’s biggest, brightest spotlight and separates those who can handle that glare from those who cannot in front of the entire sports world.
And it produces lasting memories.
No one thought Jim Valvano’s North Carolina State Wolfpack team had a chance in 1983. They had been unspectacular on the floor but spectacularly pragmatic on the scoreboard. They just kept winning, winning ugly but winning nonetheless. And they eventually won themselves a title match-up with Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, and the scary, high-flying Houston Cougars. With the game on the line, Derek Wittenburg shot a last-second, desperation air ball that somehow transformed itself into the perfect alley-oop pass in midair to teammate Lorenzo Charles for a buzzer-beating, title-winning basket. Valvano ran frantically but randomly on the court, Houston players sank to the floor in disbelief, and Whittenburg and Charles became instant legends.
Though Wittenburg never a played a game in the NBA and Charles played a just a single season there with modest results, they are remembered to this day by sports fans because of that single moment in the spotlight. Of course, eventual NBA superstars have had their day during March Madness as well.
Long before he became His Airness and Nike’s favorite marketing silhouette, Michael Jordan was a skinny sophomore guard for North Carolina, and his last-second jumper (with an inadvertent assist by Georgetown’s Fred Brown and his now-infamous blunder moments later) was a game-winning shot for the Tar Heels in the 1982 title game.
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird gave everyone a sneak preview of the great Lakers-Celtics NBA showdowns by battling each other in the NCAA title game in 1979 with Magic leading his Michigan State team to victory over Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores.
That said, it is the promise of the upset that captures the imagination of most people, and that promise only remains valid because of the notable instances when heavy underdogs have been able to make good against such long odds.
In 1985, a back-up guard for Villanova named Harold Jensen went 5-for-5 from the floor and 4-for-5 from the line in the championship game, pacing an astonishing 78.6% shooting night for his team. And it took every one of those made baskets to lift Jensen and his teammates over John Thompson, Patrick Ewing, and the defending national champion Georgetown Hoyas.
In 1998, Valparaiso University made its mark on the tournament. In their opening round game against fourth-seeded Ole Miss, the 13th-seeded Crusaders needed a miracle to win. And they got it. Trailing by two in the closing seconds, Valparaiso pulled out a trick play. Like the hook-and-ladder play in football, a long pass that drew defenders was followed by a short pitch to a wide open player. In Valpo’s case, the wide open player was 3-point assassin Bryce Drew who bombed in a long trey for the win.
And just like that, the tournament can be turned on its ear. Santa Clara and Steve Nash dump highly-touted Arizona (1993), unknown Cleveland State makes a miracle run to the Sweet Sixteen (1986), Taylor Coppenrath and the Vermont Catamounts stun media darling Syracuse (2005), and George Mason takes out tournament favorite Connecticut en route to a Final Four appearance (2006).
The Madness, the madness...
Like Whittenburg and Charles, March Madness is peppered with players who reached that single moment of fame in the tournament and were largely never heard from again. In 1977, Marquette’s Butch Lee helped to deliver a national title to legendary coach Al McGuire but was out the NBA in two years, having averaged only eight points and three assists a game. A year later, Kentucky’s Jack Givens scored 41 points in dominating the NCAA title game. Unfortunately, like Butch Lee, his NBA career also only lasted two seasons, where he averaged just under seven points and three rebounds a game
In 1987, Indiana’s Keith Smart won the NCAA championship with a last-second jumper against Syracuse. His subsequent NBA playing career lasted all of two games in which he scored exactly as many points for the Sacramento Kings as he did on that single play that brought glory to the Hoosiers and his everlasting college legacy.
In 1995, a pair of UCLA Bruins took turns in the spotlight. In a second round game against Missouri, UCLA guard Tyus Edney took the ball the length of the court in the final five seconds, split the defense, and hit a twisting layup at the buzzer to give the Bruins a thrilling one-point victory. After that, Ed O’Bannon took over. O’Bannon scored 30 points and pulled down 17 boards in the Bruins’ championship game win over Arkansas. However, neither Edney (four seasons, three teams, single-digit scoring average) nor O’Bannon (two season, two teams, single-digit scoring) parlayed their NCAA heroics into NBA success.
In 2000, Michigan State’s Mateen Cleaves willed the Spartans to the title with points and fire and toughness. Six seasons later, Cleaves has a stalled NBA career and is working in the developmental league hoping for another chance to impress at the highest level.
Though that one exhilarating moment with the entire sports world watching was a zenith career event for many, never to be reached again by them, having such a trademark moment to begin with is undeniably valuable. In sports terms, it’s not a bad consolation prize to have, not bad at all. After all, a single moment of glory is still a moment of glory, an accomplishment that cannot be undone however brief the triumph.
Last season, Florida’s Joakim Noah was the face of the tournament. Whether blocking shots or running the floor, he seemed to be everywhere and led the Gators’ unstoppable run to the title. However, George Mason’s miracle run, Adam Morrison’s waterworks, and the “other” Big Baby also garnered some ink.
So, what teams and which players will step forward this season? Will it be future NBA superstars or will it be star college players who will go no further in their athletic careers? Will all the favored teams roll or will some lightly regarded underdogs stun the big boys? Either way, it promises to be very good drama and a welcomed sight in a lagging sports season.
At 5'6", Oregon freshman Tajuan Porter is one the smallest players in all of college basketball. His game, however, is not. With an impressive array of long-distance jumpers, Porter came up big for Oregon in this week's Pac-10 conference tournament. Averaging over 20 points a game in the tournament on 13-of-21 shooting (61.9%) from 3-point land, the little man with the big jump shot delivered his share of daggers en route to the Ducks' seemingly unstoppable march to the conference tournament title.
After convincing double-digit wins over Arizona and Cal in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of the Pac-10 tournament, Oregon completed the job on Saturday by annihilating USC, a team that had beaten the Ducks in two close regular season games, by 24 in the tournament championship game. Three lopsided wins in three days, and, just like that, Oregon has gone from lukewarm to red-hot.
Speaking of trifectas, it is often said of perimeter teams in college basketball that they live by the three and die by the three. That said, the Ducks are currently living quite large by the three. In running the table at the Staples Center this week, Oregon shot over 53% from beyond the arc as a team.
And like any dangerous team, the Ducks demonstrated the ability to hurt teams with a number of different players during the tournament. Although Porter paced the team in scoring over the first two games, senior guard Aaron Brooks scored all 16 of his points against Arizona in the game's first 13 minutes to set the pace for Oregon. Against Cal, junior forward Malik Hairston, who missed 10 games during the regular season with a nagging heel injury, blistered (no pun intended) the Bears for 22 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field.
In the conference championship game, forward-guard Bryce Taylor was perfect. Literally. Taylor was 11-for-11 from the field, including an astonishing 7-for-7 from 3-point range, and 3-for-3 from the free throw line for 32 points, completing one of the most dominating performances in conference championship history.
However, the biggest surprise in Oregon's dominant run during the Pac-10 tournament may have been their stifling defense. In the Ducks' quarterfinal game with Arizona, the Wildcats top four scorers (Marcus Williams, Chase Budinger, Ivan Radenovic, and Mustafa Shakur) were held nearly 30 points below their aggregate scoring averages. Against Cal, the Bears' senior guard Ayinde Ubaka, who had torched UCLA for 29 points in Cal's stunning quarterfinal upset of the Bruins, was held to just 7 points by the Ducks. Similarly, USC's big guns were shut down. Like the Wildcats, the Trojans' top four scorers (Nick Young, Lodrick Stewart, Taj Gibson, and Gabe Pruitt) were held over 20 points below their collective season scoring averages.
So whether it is little Tajuan Porter firing his deadly quick 3-pointers, Aaron Brooks bringing his senior savvy to high-pressure game situations, a fully healthy Malik Hairston finally able to exert his considerable talents on the floor, or Bryce Taylor discovering the possibility of perfection, the Ducks bring a lot to the table. Add a newly found defensive prowess to that impressive offensive pedigree, and Oregon is now playing its best basketball in a long, long time.
And now the NCAA tournament beckons.
Before the Pac-10 Tournament, the Ducks had been projected as a likely sixth or seventh-seed in the NCAA's. After Oregon’s big conference tourney win, they have, instead, climbed all the way to the #3-seed in the Midwest region with a first-round match-up against Miami (Ohio), and that pairing is definitely favorable for Oregon. The Redhawks won the MAC conference tournament, but enter the Big Dance with an uninspiring 18-14 record.
Defense is the trademark of the Redhawks as they have held opponents to less than 60 points a game this year. However, they also score less than 60 points a game as well and basically rely on their top three scorers (forwards Tim Pollitz, Nathan Peavy, and Michael Bramos) to all of the heavy lifting, with Peavy being the tallest of the three at 6’8”.
Miami’s deliberate, slow-down style of play won’t be a complete unknown to Oregon as they have had experience playing against such a team in the Pac-10. Washington State, albeit with a much more dangerous team than Miami, plays a similar defense-first type of game, and the Ducks swept the season series against the Cougars.
In addition, Oregon is playing its best basketball of the season at the moment and will look to speed the game up as much as possible. If the Ducks start putting points on the board in bunches, it will be difficult for Miami to match.
Should Oregon advance to the round of 32, bigger, more dangerous fish await. The Midwest region includes defending national champion Florida, Big Ten powerhouse Wisconsin, and athletically gifted ACC-tested Maryland. Even some of the lower seeds in the Midwest like Georgia Tech and Winthrop represent serious threats.
However, the Ducks are playing inspired basketball, already have a Pac-10 tournament championship in pocket, and have some realistic chance to make run toward a tournament championship of a much more coveted nature. And it all starts this Friday with the focus squarely on a hungry Miami (Ohio) team that would like nothing better than to end Oregon’s magical season. It’s one-and-done time of the year, and the Ducks should be in no hurry to see anything “done” with so much unfinished business ahead.
With “Championship Week” upon us, I have noticed with some degree of curiosity how many players in college basketball bear some resemblance (and in some cases, eerie resemblance) to other notable people in the sports and entertainment world.
Of course, the most obvious example of this is Ohio State’s Greg Oden who, aside from being the oldest looking college freshman in the history of the world, looks eerily like LeBron James’ grandpa from those Nike ads.
That said, there are a number of other oddly familiar looking players making a name for themselves this college hoops season.
Exhibit 1 – Gonzaga guard David Pendergraft and celebrity chef Bobby Flay
I wonder if Bobby Flay ever watches a Gonzaga game on TV and thinks, “Holy ####, I’m playing college basketball!”
Exhibit 2 – Texas freshman Player of the Year candidate Kevin Durant and aging NFL star WR Keyshawn Johnson
I think Keyshawn had it wrong. They should just give Durant the damn ball.
Exhibit 3 – Arizona freshman phenom Chase Budinger and B-movie and cheesy sitcom actor Jake Busey
Do they play the theme song to “Shasta McNasty” when they introduce Budinger at Wildcat games?
Exhibit 4 – Texas A&M star point guard Acie Law IV and bombastic ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith
Quite frankly, Law may well lead the surprising Aggies to the Final Four this year.
Exhibit 5 – North Carolina big man Tyler Hansbrough and the guy from Spike TV’s “Joe Schmo Show”
If anything, Hansbrough’s proven himself to be no Joe Schmo in leading the Tar Heels to a possible #1 seed in the NCAA tourney.
So there you have it. If this year’s NCAA Tournament starts to look very familiar, it might be because you’ve seen most of these players somewhere else. Or at least you’ve seen their celebrity twins.
The University of Oregon basketball team is in rarified air these days. They are in the Top 20 (currently ranked 17th in the AP Poll) with three wins against Top-10 teams this year. They finished the regular season with a 23-7 record (11-7 in the Pac-10) and seem a good bet to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three years.
All in all, Ernie Kent’s bunch has a lot to be proud of. However, I doubt they would be satisfied with a nice regular season record and an invitation to the Big Dance alone. There’s still work to be done, and no one knows that better than Kent.
In fact, Kent need only to look back to the 2002 season to see how far the current Oregon team still needs to go to match the standard set by Oregon basketball teams of recent vintage. That 2002 team with the “Two Luke’s”, Ridnour and Jackson, and star guard Fred Jones not only won the Pac-10 title but also advanced to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament before falling to Kansas in the regional finals.
Those are mighty big shoes to fill, and “big” isn’t a word that can be used to describe any facet of Oregon’s game this year. Except heart. The Ducks have shown remarkable heart this season. Led by senior point guard Aaron Brooks, Oregon’s undersized lineup has relied on speed, athleticism, and long-range jumpers to keep themselves afloat. And it hasn’t been easy. Giving away a height advantage at nearly position on the floor, the Ducks have simply needed to have more energy and intensity than their opponents to make up for that difference.
And it has been Brooks more than anyone else on the team who has helped to spark that intensity. In Oregon’s two biggest wins of the season, an upset of then-top ranked UCLA and a tough road win at Arizona, it was Brooks who hit last-second, game-winning shots in each. His team-high 18.0 points per game are important but not as important as his leadership. With junior forward-guard Malik Hairston, arguably the most talented player on the roster, slowed by a nagging heel injury, Brooks has not only had to score more points, but he’s also had to convince his teammates that they can still win when Hairston is out of the lineup.
One of those players most convinced of that fact besides Brooks has been tiny, lightning quick Tajuan Porter. Though he’d only been projected as a role player, someone who could give Brooks a little rest for a few minutes a game, Porter has instead blossomed as a legitimate long-range scoring threat. The 5’6” freshman from Detroit is shooting over 41% from 3-point range and is deadly from the free throw line, connecting on 92% of his tries.
Besides Porter, forward-guard Bryce Taylor has also been a pleasant surprise. The versatile Taylor is averaging 14.4 points a game while shooting just over 50% from the floor. At 6’9”, forward Maarty Leunen is the tallest player getting regular minutes for the Ducks. Playing with more heart than height, Leunen’s gutsy play in the paint has resulted in 8.6 boards a game to go along with 11.0 points per contest.
Whatever help in the frontcourt Leunen was supposed to get from Adam Zahn, Ray Schaefer, and Mitch Platt simply hasn’t happened. Platt’s case is the most curious. At 6’10”, 275 pounds, he certainly has the size to give the team some sort of interior presence. However, Platt has seen a pittance of playing time this year, and one has to wonder if that is a result of being in the coach’s doghouse or Kent’s commitment to playing a fast, small lineup as much as possible. The smart money would be on the latter.
Compounding the team’s frontcourt troubles, highly-touted JC transfer Frantz Dorsainvil never arrived. Visa difficulties prevented the 6’8” Dorsainvil from ever joining the team.
Another item for the disappointment column has been the play of swingman Chamberlain “Champ” Oguchi. Always a streaky shooter at best, Oguchi never found his shooting touch this season. At all. By “at all”, the numbers speak for themselves: 6.0 points per game, 32% overall from the floor, and just 26% from 3-point range. When he’s on, as he was for much of the Pac-10 Tournament last year, Oguchi can be a dangerous outside threat. That said, if he finds any bit of his old shooting touch in the remaining games this year, he can still be a factor.
Clearly, the Ducks have enjoyed a very good year. However, there is unfinished business. With the Pac-10 Tournament looming and the NCAA Tournament after that, the little team with the big heart had better hope they enough of it to handle all of the taller teams that are inevitably coming their way.
If it is possible for a single shot to define a season for a college basketball team, the game-winning 8-foot running jumper by Oregon’s senior point guard Aaron Brooks against then-top ranked UCLA earlier this month seemed to do that. One of the smallest players on the floor rescued his team from mediocrity with a basket that seemed little more than a flick of the wrist just outside of the paint. But Brooks had bigger obstacles to get that shot over than just the Bruin defenders on the floor. He was shooting over Oregon’s middle of the pack basketball legacy, the prospect of a disheartening home sweep to the LA schools so early in conference play, and 33 years of history.
That’s one hell of an 8-foot jumper.
The win, which helped to wash away the disappointment of a last-second upset to unranked USC three days before, was also the first Oregon win over a top-ranked Bruin team at Mac Court since 1974. The win also put serious distance between this season’s Oregon basketball team and last year’s team that went 15-18 and showed a disturbing inability to finish games, losing eight of them by three points or less.
Going into the UCLA game, Oregon had run up an impressive 12-1 record this season, albeit with few credible challenges. So, Brooks’ game-winner not only provided instant credibility to Oregon’s 12 prior wins but also injected a fair amount of confidence into a team sorely lacking an identity. The shot also seemed to mark the transition from this being Malik Hairston’s team to it belonging to Aaron Brooks.
Hairston, the gifted junior swingman and arguably Oregon’s most talented player in years, did not play against UCLA, sidelined with a heel injury that has limited his floor time all season long. That Brooks not only led the Ducks all game long against the Bruins with 25 points (on 9-of-13 shooting) but also ended up winning the game for them left little doubt as to who was in charge.
And that, my friends, is one hell of an 8-foot jumper, indeed.
So, when Oregon swept through the Arizona desert this past week, it was little surprise that Aaron Brooks was right in the middle of it all. An unnervingly narrow win against Arizona State ramped up quickly to a showdown against then-10th ranked Arizona this past Sunday. Unlike the UCLA game, Oregon finally had its full complement of players, namely Malik Hairston was back and appeared to be at 100%.
And Hairston delivered, pouring in 18 points and grabbing 8 boards. Gritty, unheralded Maarty Leunen did most of the dirty work inside, collecting 14 rebounds to go along with 14 points. Versatile Bryce Taylor dropped in 21, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range. But at crunch time, it was again Brooks who commanded the spotlight. With the game tied at 77 in the final seconds, Brooks, who tied Taylor for team-high scoring honors with 21, drove right into the teeth of the Arizona defense and nailed a brilliant, spinning runner in the paint to give Oregon its second win against a Top 10 team in less than two weeks.
The win earned the Ducks their own spot in the Top 10 (ironically, taking the very spot the Wildcats held the previous week). With a win against the top-ranked team in the country (UCLA) and a win at one of the most difficult road venues in the nation (the McKale Center in Tucson), there’s a brand new chapter of Oregon Duck basketball unfolding this year.
And how far they go this year appears to be in the hands of one of the smallest players on the floor. That he plays so much bigger than that, especially when the spotlight is the brightest, is proof that sometimes the only true impact on a game or season is measured in results and not the physical stature of the player(s) achieving them.
Like an 8-foot jump shot by a 6’0” point guard that seems to have turned an entire season on its ear.
