MBB: Washington State @ Oregon (Feb. 14, Mon 6 PM ESPNU)

[dd10snoop28]

OK, I finally had an opportunity to watch the extended highlights to determine if all the hoopla was merited. In short, the reactions in this thread don't match what I saw. Some thoughts:


The defense was OK the first 10 minutes, bad the next 10 minutes, and TERRIBLE the last 20 minutes. Seriously, the zone was awful. Awful to watch. There were probably 4-5 three pointers on the most simple defensive breakdowns. Players were getting confused with possitioning/swtiching in the zone which was the exact same problem we were having 10 games ago! Why is this happening so late in the season?

If anything, that is the most worrisome thing. Our individual and team defense was awful, and that's not good for the future, especially this late in the season.

On the flipside, besides us panicking the last 5 minutes of the game, I thought the offense was very good. The guys who I thought were low IQ earlier in the season are playing much better offensive basketball. Defense is a different story.

However, Will Richardons, man... what is the deal? His confidence will be the downfall of our team. You are the best player on our team, dude. Not Davion Harmon. At the 1:05 mark in the game, Will Rich did a dribble handoff to give the ball up top to Harmon for an iso. In what universe is it a good idea for Will Richardson to give up the ball to Harmon to close the game? LOOOOLLLLLL This man is our best player and he doesn't even know it.

If you take away the last shot that Richardson took with a minute left, all of the following players either took the same or more amount of shots as Richardson:
Guerrier (8)
N. Dante (9)
D. Harmon (14)
W. Richardson (6)
J. Young (9)
E. Williams Jr. (6)
F. Kepnang (6)

[northbeachsf]

The question is why was fan support better at Mac Court? I went to school during the Mac Court days, and I loved that old gym, but why would a vastly upgraded facility with better teams cause fewer fans to go?

Honestly, I think a lot of the so-called improvements are great for recruits and for the program, but for fan experience? I am not so sure.

I was in school at Oregon from 1991 through 1995 and I can tell you that nothing will ever replace that experience for me. When Jerry Green came in and really started turning things around, fan excitement was off the charts. It probably had something to do with how bad Oregon was for so long, but the games were crazed and the fan experience was unique. I remember waiting in line to get tickets to the games and missing classes while waiting in line at Mac for hours to get in and make sure I was in the lower level. The student section was unique, extremely rowdy, and very fun. My girlfriend (now my wife) who grew up in Tucson as a diehard AZ fan went to a UCLA game with me at Mac and said it was the craziest thing she had ever seen. She still talks about it sometimes.

I have been to Matt and it is an amazing venue, but it has an "NBA vibe" to it. I was there when Brooks hit the three to beat UCLA and it was loud and fun, but still not on the same level as Mac. Throw in all the scripted Pit Crew stuff now and it is just "meh" compared to Mac back in the day. Mac was insane!

[UOducksTK1]

Wazzu will beat us when we face them on the road.

[nogerO]

The question is why was fan support better at Mac Court? I went to school during the Mac Court days, and I loved that old gym, but why would a vastly upgraded facility with better teams cause fewer fans to go?

Honestly, I think a lot of the so-called improvements are great for recruits and for the program, but for fan experience? I am not so sure.

I was in school at Oregon from 1991 through 1995 and I can tell you that nothing will ever replace that experience for me. When Jerry Green came in and really started turning things around, fan excitement was off the charts. It probably had something to do with how bad Oregon was for so long, but the games were crazed and the fan experience was unique. I remember waiting in line to get tickets to the games and missing classes while waiting in line at Mac for hours to get in and make sure I was in the lower level. The student section was unique, extremely rowdy, and very fun. My girlfriend (now my wife) who grew up in Tucson as a diehard AZ fan went to a UCLA game with me at Mac and said it was the craziest thing she had ever seen. She still talks about it sometimes.

I have been to Matt and it is an amazing venue, but it has an "NBA vibe" to it. I was there when Brooks hit the three to beat UCLA and it was loud and fun, but still not on the same level as Mac. Throw in all the scripted Pit Crew stuff now and it is just "meh" compared to Mac back in the day. Mac was insane!

Bigger isn't always better...

[OregonFan4Life]

Two things

I don’t think fans like me are frustrated with the team being “bad”, as they aren’t bad and their record and big wins indicate that. They’re just a frustrating team to watch cause of how inconsistent they’ve been and their sloppy style of basketball. They play a lot of iso ball with hardly any ball movement and because college players aren’t near as skilled as NBA players that style of play is usually much harder to watch in college. It’s similar to the football team this last year too, they would play a clean inspired game at Ohio St and win then just a few weeks later play very uninspired and sloppy against a bad Stanford team and lose. As fans that’s frustrating to watch.

Also regarding fan involvement, I don’t think people are saying it’s dropped since Mac Court, the problem is that Matt Knight is WAY too big for our area so games hardly ever sell out giving the appearance fan involvement has dropped. This was what Rob Mullens was afraid of when he and Phil Knight went back and forth over the size of the arena. Phil wanted it large enough to host an NCAA regional but Rob wanted it to be smaller to avoid this issue. The reality is Matt Knight is too big for Eugene and especially on a 8:00 PM game on a weeknight, the giant stadium will look empty giving the appearance fans don’t care.

On GoDucks, they have the average attendance at 6,600. That would barely be 2/3 of the Mac Court capacity. Lest we think that lower opponents are dragging the average attendance down, the game against the defending champ and no. 1 Baylor brought in 7,800 fans. This was a game on a Saturday evening. Unfathomable apathy around the program.

I stand corrected, looks like attendance has decreased. But still, a 3/4 full Mac Court is way more intimidating than a 1/2 full Matt Knight Arena.

I think this is a nationwide problem except for a few schools. TV coverage and quality is getting better, students aren’t near as rowdy as they used to be and they simply don’t care as much, especially with kids going to schools across the nation. I think a lot of other schools have addressed the decline in fan attendance at games, even Nick Saban mentioned it before.

[northbeachsf]

Why not renovate Mac and have a few games in there every year to drive fan excitement? Maybe you play the OSU and/or the UW home games in there every year. Fans would go bonkers and I guarantee attendance would go up fast.

[pudgejeff]

Why not renovate Mac and have a few games in there every year to drive fan excitement? Maybe you play the OSU and/or the UW home games in there every year. Fans would go bonkers and I guarantee attendance would go up fast.

Would almost for sure be a must attend for a lot of us I feel like.

[OregonFan4Life]

Why not renovate Mac and have a few games in there every year to drive fan excitement? Maybe you play the OSU and/or the UW home games in there every year. Fans would go bonkers and I guarantee attendance would go up fast.

That’s a lot of money to go into a couple of games a year.

[Duck07]

Why not renovate Mac and have a few games in there every year to drive fan excitement? Maybe you play the OSU and/or the UW home games in there every year. Fans would go bonkers and I guarantee attendance would go up fast.

Off the top of my head I believe its due the to lead and asbestos that is in the building.