Dunigan gone?

[woundedknees]

What he said ^ ...

[BillM]

Boom says the team gave up after EK was fired, but the sweep of the LA schools came after MB fired EK after the abysmal games against Stanford and Cal at home. Not sure that fits the giving up scenario.

[woundedknees]

Maybe the guys just don't like how hard Altman makes them practice...

[Boom]

The fact that "sweeping the LA schools" was the first thing you mentioned when recalling how we showed promise last year is all that really needs to be said. We swept a pair of schools who combined to go 30-32? Sign me up! The blowout home loss to Montana takes far more precedent than than sweeping a pair of bad schools.

In '01 and '06, we beat several ranked teams and in '06, specifically, things started to click towards the end of the season that served as a good lead-in to the '07 Elite Eight year. Weren't we a double OT loss to Cal -- played without Brooks -- away from the Pac-10 Tourney title game? We had a lot of close losses that year, several late game Brooks implosions, and we played in a MUCH, MUCH more difficult Pac-10. We got some wins this year because the Pac-10 was horrific. If Oregon played anything resembling a legit OOC schedule -- heck, or even the one the '06 team played, when they played @ Vanderbilt (another game that flashed the '06 team's potential), Georgetown, and Illinois -- and if they didn't play in arguably the worst Pac-10 of all time, they wouldn't have even sniffed .500. Not even close.

I don't think the fact that there were 8 sophomores on last year's team matters, either. In addition to the 3 future NBA Draft picks that Ernie Kent absolutely has to have to win an NCAA Tournament game, one of them has to be a 1st round PG prospect. I like Malcolm Armstead as much as the next guy, but he's not sniffing the NBA. Where's the All American (Jones/Brooks)? Where are the shooters? Malcolm and Humphrey were our best longball shooters, and they are/were inconsistent as hell, nothing like the barrage of shooters we had in '02 (Rid, Jackson, Jones, Davis, Lever) or '07 (Brooks, TP, Taylor, Malik).

There's just no similarities between this team and Kent's good teams from earlier in his regime. The ceiling was always through the roof for the other groups, and you had serious talent just waiting to explode. The only kid who had that kind of potential with last year's group was Jamil, and I think he was at least another year away, and that's if he stayed (which is no guarantee, even if Kent was retained).

Unless your North Carolina or Kentucky with a top 5 recruiting classes....... Then the age and experience of the team matters..... Young teams get better as they mature.

And again..... I'm not saying that they would have made an elite run...... just simply that they would be competing for the Tourney.

btw, brooks was nothing close to an All American in '05-'06 season

[gofightingducks]

The team wasn't going to be good under Kent over the next few years, he had decent talent but couldn't coach them up so getting Altman and losing players doesn't really change things in the short term. Yes the loss of Dunigan and others makes things more difficult for Altman next season but if he is able to sell himself and the program to recruits this season, and things might be easier for him to do that because of the small number of scholarship players, and if he is a s good of a coach as he is said to be, he can get the program on the right track pretty quickly once he has a full roster of players again. The next couple years are probably not going to be pretty regardless of who the coach was/is.

I disagree.... This team would have likely made similar improvement as past EK teams and would have been competing for post season play.

I understand that there is a perception that Altman is a better basketball coach..... but do you really think he's going to get Pac 10 caliber talent?

I think most kids want to play for a winning team with a coach that will get them to the NBA......... Altman is far from that.

He hasn't coached a single game yet in the PAC-10 and you are already writing him off. We have no idea how well he is going to recruit or coach this team. What was the school supposed to do with a very expensive arena built and fans upset about the underachieving of the team? Keep Kent around and continue to give him opportunity after opportunity to field a winning team? That wouldn't be fair to the fans, the players , the boosters, etc. Kent could have been fired long ago but was given chances to be more consistent and win and he was unable to do that, the team had continued to decline over the last couple of years and that was unacceptable. Altman may not be the right guy, we have no idea but Kent was no longer the right guy to lead the team. Yes everybody wanted the big name coach but it is possible that if we had been able to lure a big name coach here, they may not have been a good fit, remember Phil Knight has a lot of say in what happens with Oregon athletics, some coaches do not like that. What is done is done and all we can do at this point is support Altman and his staff and the remaining players and hope that the team gets better and is able to consistently compete and get to the postseason.

[oregontrack]

The fact that "sweeping the LA schools" was the first thing you mentioned when recalling how we showed promise last year is all that really needs to be said. We swept a pair of schools who combined to go 30-32? Sign me up! The blowout home loss to Montana takes far more precedent than than sweeping a pair of bad schools.

In '01 and '06, we beat several ranked teams and in '06, specifically, things started to click towards the end of the season that served as a good lead-in to the '07 Elite Eight year. Weren't we a double OT loss to Cal -- played without Brooks -- away from the Pac-10 Tourney title game? We had a lot of close losses that year, several late game Brooks implosions, and we played in a MUCH, MUCH more difficult Pac-10. We got some wins this year because the Pac-10 was horrific. If Oregon played anything resembling a legit OOC schedule -- heck, or even the one the '06 team played, when they played @ Vanderbilt (another game that flashed the '06 team's potential), Georgetown, and Illinois -- and if they didn't play in arguably the worst Pac-10 of all time, they wouldn't have even sniffed .500. Not even close.

I don't think the fact that there were 8 sophomores on last year's team matters, either. In addition to the 3 future NBA Draft picks that Ernie Kent absolutely has to have to win an NCAA Tournament game, one of them has to be a 1st round PG prospect. I like Malcolm Armstead as much as the next guy, but he's not sniffing the NBA. Where's the All American (Jones/Brooks)? Where are the shooters? Malcolm and Humphrey were our best longball shooters, and they are/were inconsistent as hell, nothing like the barrage of shooters we had in '02 (Rid, Jackson, Jones, Davis, Lever) or '07 (Brooks, TP, Taylor, Malik).

There's just no similarities between this team and Kent's good teams from earlier in his regime. The ceiling was always through the roof for the other groups, and you had serious talent just waiting to explode. The only kid who had that kind of potential with last year's group was Jamil, and I think he was at least another year away, and that's if he stayed (which is no guarantee, even if Kent was retained).

Unless your North Carolina or Kentucky with a top 5 recruiting classes....... Then the age and experience of the team matters..... Young teams get better as they mature.

And again..... I'm not saying that they would have made an elite run...... just simply that they would be competing for the Tourney.

btw, brooks was nothing close to an All American in '05-'06 season

"Better" is the term in question, though. Better than what? And how high of a ceiling does 'better' have? Oregon State had a veteran team last year and actually took a step backwards compared to the year before. Why? They were older, but they just didn't have much talent. Oregon will be older next year, but the Ducks weren't exactly swimming in talent even before all the defections. We probably lose Wiley, Crittle, and Jamil regardless of the coaching change. Juniors tend to be better than sophomores, but we weren't going to be challenging for a postseason berth "just because we're older". Most of the Pac-10 returns, sans Cal. We were no more talented than anybody else, and everyone else is getting older, too.

I didn't say Brooks was an All American during the '06 season. I was saying he had flashed huge potential in his time in Oregon, and many were hopeful for a Fred Jones "put it all together" season season. There was no denying his talent; a lot of his problems were in-between the ears. With most of this current group, it's a matter of not having it together mentally and not having a bunch of talent, the talent part being damn hard to teach, especially from a guy like Ernie.

[woundedknees]

Keep in mind that much of the PAC10 apparently was better coached than Oregon under Kent's recent years.

[greenyellow]

The fact that "sweeping the LA schools" was the first thing you mentioned when recalling how we showed promise last year is all that really needs to be said. We swept a pair of schools who combined to go 30-32? Sign me up! The blowout home loss to Montana takes far more precedent than than sweeping a pair of bad schools.

In '01 and '06, we beat several ranked teams and in '06, specifically, things started to click towards the end of the season that served as a good lead-in to the '07 Elite Eight year. Weren't we a double OT loss to Cal -- played without Brooks -- away from the Pac-10 Tourney title game? We had a lot of close losses that year, several late game Brooks implosions, and we played in a MUCH, MUCH more difficult Pac-10. We got some wins this year because the Pac-10 was horrific. If Oregon played anything resembling a legit OOC schedule -- heck, or even the one the '06 team played, when they played @ Vanderbilt (another game that flashed the '06 team's potential), Georgetown, and Illinois -- and if they didn't play in arguably the worst Pac-10 of all time, they wouldn't have even sniffed .500. Not even close.

I don't think the fact that there were 8 sophomores on last year's team matters, either. In addition to the 3 future NBA Draft picks that Ernie Kent absolutely has to have to win an NCAA Tournament game, one of them has to be a 1st round PG prospect. I like Malcolm Armstead as much as the next guy, but he's not sniffing the NBA. Where's the All American (Jones/Brooks)? Where are the shooters? Malcolm and Humphrey were our best longball shooters, and they are/were inconsistent as hell, nothing like the barrage of shooters we had in '02 (Rid, Jackson, Jones, Davis, Lever) or '07 (Brooks, TP, Taylor, Malik).

There's just no similarities between this team and Kent's good teams from earlier in his regime. The ceiling was always through the roof for the other groups, and you had serious talent just waiting to explode. The only kid who had that kind of potential with last year's group was Jamil, and I think he was at least another year away, and that's if he stayed (which is no guarantee, even if Kent was retained).

Unless your North Carolina or Kentucky with a top 5 recruiting classes....... Then the age and experience of the team matters..... Young teams get better as they mature.

And again..... I'm not saying that they would have made an elite run...... just simply that they would be competing for the Tourney.

btw, brooks was nothing close to an All American in '05-'06 season

"Better" is the term in question, though. Better than what? And how high of a ceiling does 'better' have? Oregon State had a veteran team last year and actually took a step backwards compared to the year before. Why? They were older, but they just didn't have much talent. Oregon will be older next year, but the Ducks weren't exactly swimming in talent even before all the defections. We probably lose Wiley, Crittle, and Jamil regardless of the coaching change. Juniors tend to be better than sophomores, but we weren't going to be challenging for a postseason berth "just because we're older". Most of the Pac-10 returns, sans Cal. We were no more talented than anybody else, and everyone else is getting older, too.

I didn't say Brooks was an All American during the '06 season. I was saying he had flashed huge potential in his time in Oregon, and many were hopeful for a Fred Jones "put it all together" season season. There was no denying his talent; a lot of his problems were in-between the ears. With most of this current group, it's a matter of not having it together mentally and not having a bunch of talent, the talent part being damn hard to teach, especially from a guy like Ernie.

+1

[maxduck]

He hasn't coached a single game yet in the PAC-10 and you are already writing him off. We have no idea how well he is going to recruit or coach this team. What was the school supposed to do with a very expensive arena built and fans upset about the underachieving of the team? Keep Kent around and continue to give him opportunity after opportunity to field a winning team? That wouldn't be fair to the fans, the players , the boosters, etc. Kent could have been fired long ago but was given chances to be more consistent and win and he was unable to do that, the team had continued to decline over the last couple of years and that was unacceptable. Altman may not be the right guy, we have no idea but Kent was no longer the right guy to lead the team. Yes everybody wanted the big name coach but it is possible that if we had been able to lure a big name coach here, they may not have been a good fit, remember Phil Knight has a lot of say in what happens with Oregon athletics, some coaches do not like that. What is done is done and all we can do at this point is support Altman and his staff and the remaining players and hope that the team gets better and is able to consistently compete and get to the postseason.

It was obvious early on that Kent would be fired. Oregon had every opportunity to screen and contact a list of candidates for the position. It would have been difficult for the Athletic Department to screw this up more than they did.

Had the coaching search not looked like a Keystone Cops routine we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

[woundedknees]

I believe any screening was shot to heck when some of those teams exploded in the late season/tournament, making the prospect of staying for guys such as Jamie Dixon, much more attractive (As well as lucrative).

[duckfan96]

As a coach...ya know the leader of the team who makes his players better....I never really saw that with EK. I mean his good teams would be good regardless. That team with Freddie, Rid and Jackson. That was a bad assed team. During time outs EK did nothing...walk around on the court and adjust his tie. EK did alot for Oregon basketball...just not recently. His teams were getting worse not better. End of chapter open up the next one and move on. EK is gone. I thought this was about Dunigan anyways? Oh well this beats hearing about Masoli all the damn time

[Boom]

The fact that "sweeping the LA schools" was the first thing you mentioned when recalling how we showed promise last year is all that really needs to be said. We swept a pair of schools who combined to go 30-32? Sign me up! The blowout home loss to Montana takes far more precedent than than sweeping a pair of bad schools.

In '01 and '06, we beat several ranked teams and in '06, specifically, things started to click towards the end of the season that served as a good lead-in to the '07 Elite Eight year. Weren't we a double OT loss to Cal -- played without Brooks -- away from the Pac-10 Tourney title game? We had a lot of close losses that year, several late game Brooks implosions, and we played in a MUCH, MUCH more difficult Pac-10. We got some wins this year because the Pac-10 was horrific. If Oregon played anything resembling a legit OOC schedule -- heck, or even the one the '06 team played, when they played @ Vanderbilt (another game that flashed the '06 team's potential), Georgetown, and Illinois -- and if they didn't play in arguably the worst Pac-10 of all time, they wouldn't have even sniffed .500. Not even close.

I don't think the fact that there were 8 sophomores on last year's team matters, either. In addition to the 3 future NBA Draft picks that Ernie Kent absolutely has to have to win an NCAA Tournament game, one of them has to be a 1st round PG prospect. I like Malcolm Armstead as much as the next guy, but he's not sniffing the NBA. Where's the All American (Jones/Brooks)? Where are the shooters? Malcolm and Humphrey were our best longball shooters, and they are/were inconsistent as hell, nothing like the barrage of shooters we had in '02 (Rid, Jackson, Jones, Davis, Lever) or '07 (Brooks, TP, Taylor, Malik).

There's just no similarities between this team and Kent's good teams from earlier in his regime. The ceiling was always through the roof for the other groups, and you had serious talent just waiting to explode. The only kid who had that kind of potential with last year's group was Jamil, and I think he was at least another year away, and that's if he stayed (which is no guarantee, even if Kent was retained).

Unless your North Carolina or Kentucky with a top 5 recruiting classes....... Then the age and experience of the team matters..... Young teams get better as they mature.

And again..... I'm not saying that they would have made an elite run...... just simply that they would be competing for the Tourney.

btw, brooks was nothing close to an All American in '05-'06 season

"Better" is the term in question, though. Better than what? And how high of a ceiling does 'better' have? Oregon State had a veteran team last year and actually took a step backwards compared to the year before. Why? They were older, but they just didn't have much talent. Oregon will be older next year, but the Ducks weren't exactly swimming in talent even before all the defections. We probably lose Wiley, Crittle, and Jamil regardless of the coaching change. Juniors tend to be better than sophomores, but we weren't going to be challenging for a postseason berth "just because we're older". Most of the Pac-10 returns, sans Cal. We were no more talented than anybody else, and everyone else is getting older, too.

I didn't say Brooks was an All American during the '06 season. I was saying he had flashed huge potential in his time in Oregon, and many were hopeful for a Fred Jones "put it all together" season season. There was no denying his talent; a lot of his problems were in-between the ears. With most of this current group, it's a matter of not having it together mentally and not having a bunch of talent, the talent part being damn hard to teach, especially from a guy like Ernie.

you could say the same thing for Dunigan & Armstead.....

[duckgrad99]

I really don't understand why some people bash Altman. Maybe it's because they didn't hear of him before he came to Oregon. There are plenty of coaches that start out at mid majors or with no head coaching experience at all that end up as top coaches at top programs. Jamie Dixon had no head coaching experience before Pitt. Mark Turgeon was at Wichita St before Texas A &M. The list goes on and on. There is nothing to suggest that Kent is a better coach than Altman. Why aren't schools looking at Kent for a job now? Anyway, the point is that it's time to move on. Losing Dunigan would suck regardless of who the head coach is.

[Boom]

It was obvious early on that Kent would be fired. Oregon had every opportunity to screen and contact a list of candidates for the position. It would have been difficult for the Athletic Department to screw this up more than they did.

Had the coaching search not looked like a Keystone Cops routine we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.

I agree with this.......

I understand Kent needed to be fired........ and we needed to move in a different direction..... but we should have known who we were going to hire ahead of time...... and it shouldn't have been a no name mid major coach that hasn't garnered a lot of interest from major programs.

[woundedknees]

Unlike the way a certain USC football coach hires assistants, there are some things that are not done at the college level by most programs with integrity, one of those being arranging to hire a coach without contacting his superiors prior to that fact.

Knowing who you were going to hire before firing the head coach is a heckuva lot more involved than it sounds.

On top of that, who knows how things would have played out had Belloti been allowed to head the process?

There were insinuations that he might have actually had a plan, had he stayed long enough to implement it.

Lay that one at Lariviere's doorstep.