#1 Duke vs Oregon

[oregontrack]

Wow, that went from 12 points to 30 in about a minute and a half.

[greenyellow]

They kept fighting and didn't lose by like 40 or 50. If anything, you have to like the effort that this team gives every night. You can easily tell which program has 30 years of good basketball versus one that is rebuilding. Once Altman has some talented guys in his system that give as much effort as they do now, they will seriously contend for the Pac-10 Championship again and will make the NCAA Tournament. It may be 2-5 years before that happens but the program is on the right track again.

[oregontrack]

Props to Catron for getting up near his average (18 pts today) despite being 6 inches smaller then Duke's front line, and all of Duke's bigs could outrun and outjump him. He played really hard amidst what had to be a frustrating trio of Duke bigs that harrassed him all day.

And as said above, the whole team played hard. Good to see.

I thought we came out really uptight, which led to a lot of easy misses. That almost leads me to believe that this team actually thought they had a chance to win this game, which as ridiculous as that sounds to you or me, is pretty cool coming from the team.

He had a poor shooting night, but I was really impressed by Loyd. Armstead is borderline useless right now, if he doesn't turn it around by Pac-10 play I would not at all be upset to start the freshman.

[duckgrad99]

Someone mentioned the other day that Armstead doesn't seem to fit well in Altman's system. I guess that would explain some of his issues this season. Anyway, this team doesn't have a ton of talent, but at least the effort will be there.

[Boom]

lack of talent doesn't really explain all of the miss layins though, even on fast breaks they couldn't convert. Next season cant get here soon enough. Too bad we don't have enough bodies to redshirt some of our good players and build something up for the next 2 seasons. It's gona have to be a complete rebuild job

[woundedknees]

Missing from point blank range was a big reason for several losses last season...

[duckgrad99]

Armstead needs to stop turning the ball over so much. That is now 27 turnovers in 6 games for him.

[dthomas=ddixon]

I had to work so I didn't get to see the game but was honestly somewhat pleased with the score. Especially since they just beat #4 KState by a similar amount. Good to hear that we were closer than that for a lot of the game too. Altman's doing a great job.

[buckmarkduck]

Loyd really impressed me today, playing against the best in the country he had 10 points 3 steals and most important 0 turnovers. This team might just surprise of folks around the Pac-10 before it's all over this year. I think we just might have our PG of the future, or at the very least a great back up if Barron is everything Mops makes him out to be.

[gregspechtismyhero]

Ya, I went to the game and it was pretty much a duke home game. It was probably 70/30 duke. But some thought about the game
Bad:
Missed layins were huge. They killed our momentum and Duke seemed to go down and hit a 3 every time we got something going. The defense was up and down, there was a serious lack of post presence in the 1st half, but switching to the zone helped that a little bit. 2nd chance points were also big. They didn't have any because they made everything they shot, but we would have a 2nd or 3rd try and miss the easy basket.
Good:
So much hustle and heart from these guys. We were pretty much equal on the hustleboard, and that's all I was really hoping for. Altman shows a lot of energy on the bench, I'm not sure if that's good energy or bad energy, but the way those guys were playing today, I'm putting it under the good.

[greenyellow]

Ya, I went to the game and it was pretty much a duke home game. It was probably 70/30 duke. But some thought about the game
Bad:
Missed layins were huge. They killed our momentum and Duke seemed to go down and hit a 3 every time we got something going. The defense was up and down, there was a serious lack of post presence in the 1st half, but switching to the zone helped that a little bit. 2nd chance points were also big. They didn't have any because they made everything they shot, but we would have a 2nd or 3rd try and miss the easy basket.
Good:
So much hustle and heart from these guys. We were pretty much equal on the hustleboard, and that's all I was really hoping for. Altman shows a lot of energy on the bench, I'm not sure if that's good energy or bad energy, but the way those guys were playing today, I'm putting it under the good.

I think it's good energy that we are seeing from Altman. He is engaged in the action and is really trying to coach the team up, not just yelling to yell.

[Hoagduck]

There was significant improvement. The team got beat bad, but not completely slaughtered like many expected. It was nice to see a measuring stick compared to the best in the country.

[UOducksTK1]

After seeing what San Diego did to us last time in the Rose Garden, I'll definitely take a 27 point lost to the #1 Devils.

[oregontrack]

God, that's for sure. That San Diego game was cringe worthy.