Washington vs Oregon

[UOducksTK1]

8:30 pm pst. Winner plays in the Pac-10 championship game.

[greenyellow]

Let's hope for another miracle performance, but UW could be ripe for the picking since they are almost assured a spot in the NCAA Tournament so could be overlooking the game and are coming off a tough win over WSU.

[UOducksTK1]

While I'm loving this run so far, I have a very hard time seeing us beat Washington and Arizona. We'd probably have to play even better than we are now.

[Greenblood]

Just really hard for me to comprehend how they've bounced back after, to begin with, that dagger of the second half vs. Cal at Matt and continuing through the ASU game in Tempe -- destroying any faint glimmer of a hope that we could make the NIT, or just go into the Pac-10 tourney with some mo. How was the season not just "over" at that point, as the Ducks were (finally) looking like they were "supposed" to have looked for the whole year?

They've really resurrected themselves, really, in my view, beginning with how they played vs. Arizona. If they were to beat UW tonight, I'd be near-catatonic.

[woundedknees]

What a contrast to the last two seasons... The heart and grit Altman's guys bring to the floor is a joy to watch.

Last night, the Ducks shot 49.1% from the field, 38.5% from 3 point range, and 81% at the charity stripe. The thing I enjoyed the most was seeing that dirty Mr. Singler still has the ability to get into Reeves Nelson's head... That technical put a smile on my face, for sure.

[oregontrack]

Really awkward watching Ernie praise Altman for getting the Ducks ready to play. Speaking of Big Ern, if he could do one thing, it was get his team ready to play in the Pac-10 tournament. Glad that's carried over. Washington has a lot more talent than we do, but they are indeed thin, especially on the perimeter. With Gaddy and Overton out, IT is playing every minute of every game. MBA and their other big will cause us trouble again, but if we can hit our shots...

[dthomas=ddixon]

Maybe its just me but it seems like when we play well, we play really really well. There's no in between. Almost all of our wins follow the same pattern. We make the other team uncomfortable with our pressure D, force a lot of TOs & on offense continually get easy open shots which leads to a really high %. We just methodically pull away till the other team gives up. Normally when you see a team shoot 50% from 3 its because they were just on fire & won't shoot like that again for another 3 years. But we seem to shoot like that pretty regularly.

I'm just wondering from some of you more knowledgeable bball fans if thats something we should come to expect, especially with even better shooters coming, or is it just us catching lightning in a bottle this year? Is it Altman's style that he has his teams play that lends itself to these blowouts where we just can't miss?

[oregontrack]

Maybe its just me but it seems like when we play well, we play really really well. There's no in between. Almost all of our wins follow the same pattern. We make the other team uncomfortable with our pressure D, force a lot of TOs & on offense continually get easy open shots which leads to a really high %. We just methodically pull away till the other team gives up. Normally when you see a team shoot 50% from 3 its because they were just on fire & won't shoot like that again for another 3 years. But we seem to shoot like that pretty regularly.

I'm just wondering from some of you more knowledgeable bball fans if thats something we should come to expect, especially with even better shooters coming, or is it just us catching lightning in a bottle this year? Is it Altman's style that he has his teams play that lends itself to these blowouts where we just can't miss?

We've been getting open shots all year (hitting them has sometimes been an adventure, though...) because the system Altman runs. That was the key to his success at Creighton, and it seems to do the trick in the Pac-10, too. The idea is to get the ball into the interior and work from there. That's one of the reasons we beat Oregon State like a drum this year, and Ernie had a lot of problems with Craig Robinson's zone: you attack the zone by working inside-out, not the other way around. Altman's system takes that philosophy and employs it against every type of defense, zone or man; work it inside, force the defense to react, then go with the basketball to wherever the defense isn't focusing. If you work the ball inside to, say, Catron, defenses almost always instinctively swarm to the paint; naturally, this leads to open looks outside. If they don't flock inside and Catron has a 1-on-1 matchup he likes, he goes to work and attempts a high-percentage shot near basketball. This is also why big men who can shoot (which Catron, Nared, and Jacob can all do) are all so key to an Altman offense: if you work the ball into the second layer of a defense, and the 'D' doesn't react, you want a guy like Nared in there who can pull up for a relatively easy 10 foot jumper. No offense intended to Michael Dunigan, but a guy like Nared or Jacob fits Altman's plans better than Dunigan's relatively non-existent offensive game away from the basket.

I don't know if that really answers your question; but I think Altman's system is great for the college game. Whether we convert these open shots might always be up in air, but with guys like Kingma and Brown coming in, we should certainly be able to put a team on the floor that's capable of doing so. Kuemper's not a traditional low post scoring machine, but he's got a jumper and he should be able to contribute right away, whereas in other systems he might be struggling for playing time as his post game develops.

Getting better talent on the floor will obviously help things out... Armstead's got a pretty good first step and Loyd's really quick, but they're really the only guys we have that can cut into the teeth of the defense right now, and Armstead's really the only guy we have that can get to the interior of the defense on his own and convert. Getting a guy like Brown in here will help considerably, and open up more options.

[dthomas=ddixon]

Thanks for the response, thats pretty much what I was wondering. I'm just used to thinking that when a team hits around 50% from 3, its a total aberration & they just had a good night. But it seemed like we are doing it fairly often so I just wasn't sure & don't know enough about the game to point out exactly why we were getting suck open looks & knocking them down. The system? Luck? The other team just not playing good D?

Things are definitely looking pretty good for the future. We'll be adding better players & more depth so we should see even more of this in the years to come.

[Greenblood]

I'm just afraid now that the Ducks' lack of depth + three games in three nights might be just a bit too much for thrm to overcome.

[JustisM]

Must win.
If we win this do you think we can go to the NIT?

[woundedknees]

I would give that an unequivocal maybe... But I would be shocked if it happened.

IMO, the Ducks needed at least a split in the last 2 series of the regular season.

[desertfan]

Screw the NIT, we are going dancing

[mdm0302]

anyone have a stream to AZ v USC?

[cordy02c]

we are cold but hanging in there