Arizona @ Oregon (SAT)

[duckgrad99]

i agree with this to an extent, only i think not redshirting some kids last year was the crime. wilson wouldn't have come here if we told him we were going to redshirt him. singler has lately run into some early foul trouble which has been frustrating, but he's probably the smartest kid on this team from a basketball perspective, and i think he needs to play. outside of dunigan, he's our best rebounder, and he's got a well-rounded offensive game. his problem offensively is that he's too unselfish + others around him like to hog the ball.

not redshirting wiley and williams last year was borderline criminal. i realize wiley was a four star recruit, but as a thurston high alum/fan, i saw almost every game he played his senior... and he was never, ever going to contribute as a true freshman. he absolutely needed to redshirt. hell, he would have benefited from a redshirt this year, too. he's playing even less this year than last. likewise, teondre needed to redshirt as a freshman... he barely played, he had lingering injury issues... blah. crittle played quite a big last year, but is there any reason he's not redshirting this year? he's certainly not playing.[/quote]



You said it better than I did. I'm certainly no expert, but I've never understood Kent's rotation of players and distribution of minutes. I have no idea where Crittle is.

[UOducksTK1]

i disagree re: today's loss not being about coaching. ernie kent teams have never, ever consistently fed the post, and we didn't do it at all today. dunigan won pac-10 potw two weeks ago, and we ignore him completely in order to take a jumper. armstead finally started heating up at one point, so naturally he needed to go sit on the bench to catch a breather. porter's allowed to do whatever he wants whenever he wants, team defense is optional, and the overall basketball iq of this team rivals some of those old damon stoudamire/zach randolph/bonzi wells jail blazer teams.

there's no cohesive plan on offense, and defense is... well, just plain bad. in the first five or six years of ernie kent's stay in eugene, we at least devoted ourselves to the fast break. darius wright and luke ridnour ran it to perfection. even when we didn't win, we still went with it, and it masked our half-court problems. for some reason, though, when aaron brooks got here, kent decided to slow the pace, and the fast break that we used to excel at has only made sporadic appearances since. despite the shift in philosophies, we still recruit like a fast break team. so we have a roster full of athletes who need to run in order to succeed, but they don't run. they're mediocre shooters who rely on a simplistic kick-out offense, which can work... if you have excellent shooters. they're athletic, but we don't take advantage of slashers. this year in particular, even though dunigan can run, it's like we purposely slow things down in order to suit his game, only we don't get him the ball, making the whole ordeal an exercise in futility.

ernie's not the same coach he was from '97-03. we used to be fun, even when we didn't win.

You make some excellent posts and I do agree with you a lot. But you have to admit, today's loss had a lot to due with poor shooting. And a lot of those misses were on open looks. So, I do agree with everything you said, and I can't stand Kent, but some games you just aren't hitting.

i agree, we had a poor shooting night, but that also leads into part of my rant. we're a team full of mediocre shooters, but ernie continues to play a brand of offense that demands good three point shooting in order to win games. the term "live by the three, die by the three" became really popular around here during the ridnour era, but in reality, while we did shoot a bunch of threes, we had some amazing longball shooters in rid, jackson, jones, lever, and davis... and on days when we weren't knocking down a bunch of treys, our faster-than-lightning style of play led to easy buckets off rebounds (and heck, often off made shots). now, we don't give ourselves opportunities to get easy buckets, and we have nowhere near as good of shooters.

imo, on night's where we aren't shooting well (which, unfortunately, is often), we need to be doing other things. lekendric is good at driving and getting his on shot, and armstead was on that washington trip, but guys like wilson and teondre should be making a living on cuts and getting to the foul line. and dunigan, of course, needs to be the focal point in which everything we do is based off of. instead, all we seem to do is stand around and wait for a jumper.

16 3 point attempts isn't that bad considering we forced a couple 3 pointers late on, and a couple 3s had to be shot because of the shot clock winding down. Honestly, I don't even feel like we are that run n gun and 3 point boming team anymore. Maybe Kent wants us to play like that, but I'm not seeing it that much (outside of Porter of course lol). So I don't think it's a mediocre shooters problem, but it seems like we don't have anyone who can penetrate. We are lacking scoring, period. Dunigan, Armstead, and occasionally Longmire are really the only players who can score inside. IF you look at today's game, they scored 48 of our 60 points on 16 of 36 shooting (45%). The rest of our team shot 4 for 24.

So clearly coaching sucks, and we probably do shoot more 3s than we should, but the problem is it seems like we don't even have the players capable of slashing and getting higher percentage shots. So yeah, that's a coaching problem. Coaches should know who is able to do what, and get the ball to the players who can score high percentage shots (Longmire/Dunigan/Armstead). But at the same time, you need to understand a lot of the players we have are outside oriented (Williams = jump shots, Singler = all around, Sim = 3 point shooter, Porter = shooter). None of those guys are much of a threat off the drive..

[bellsduck]

i disagree re: today's loss not being about coaching. ernie kent teams have never, ever consistently fed the post, and we didn't do it at all today. dunigan won pac-10 potw two weeks ago, and we ignore him completely in order to take a jumper. armstead finally started heating up at one point, so naturally he needed to go sit on the bench to catch a breather. porter's allowed to do whatever he wants whenever he wants, team defense is optional, and the overall basketball iq of this team rivals some of those old damon stoudamire/zach randolph/bonzi wells jail blazer teams.

there's no cohesive plan on offense, and defense is... well, just plain bad. in the first five or six years of ernie kent's stay in eugene, we at least devoted ourselves to the fast break. darius wright and luke ridnour ran it to perfection. even when we didn't win, we still went with it, and it masked our half-court problems. for some reason, though, when aaron brooks got here, kent decided to slow the pace, and the fast break that we used to excel at has only made sporadic appearances since. despite the shift in philosophies, we still recruit like a fast break team. so we have a roster full of athletes who need to run in order to succeed, but they don't run. they're mediocre shooters who rely on a simplistic kick-out offense, which can work... if you have excellent shooters. they're athletic, but we don't take advantage of slashers. this year in particular, even though dunigan can run, it's like we purposely slow things down in order to suit his game, only we don't get him the ball, making the whole ordeal an exercise in futility.

ernie's not the same coach he was from '97-03. we used to be fun, even when we didn't win.

I actually disagree with this a little bit for today's game only. I thought we had a fairly concerted effort to feed Dunigan the ball. We didn't necessarily do a great job of it, but we did it much more than any time previously.

[shear_j]

One of the biggest problems I see out here is there isn't a go to, upper classman or lower classman, leader on the floor and I dont see anyone out there who will step up. Longmire was trying to motivate the players but its tough to follow a bench guy. I do not want this team to follow Porter, who I think should be benched, because his idea of leadership is to cast a fade away 23 foot contested shot immediately after a timeout appearantly so that he can show how good he plays d . Also Catron has been out most of the year.

We also dont have a real dominant underclassman to step up and be a leader right now either. I think that Armstead and Dunigan will eventually fill that roll but Armstead needs to learn to fit in with the team and Dunigan is still learning the ins and outs of the game.

We can complain about the coaches all we want (and this may be the coaches fault) but to me this has been the biggest difference the last couple of years compared to out previous few successful years. We had Jones, then Rid, then Jackson, then Brooks. Now...nothing.

Just my personal observation on the matter.

[duckfbfan15]

IMO the starting lineup should consist of:

Armstead
Williams
Longmire
Wilson
Dunnigan


Bench guys:

Porter
Jacob
Singler
Crittle

That combination of guys seems like the best option together from what i have seen as far as performance and effort out of each individual.

[duckgrad99]

IMO the starting lineup should consist of:

Armstead
Williams
Longmire
Wilson
Dunnigan


Bench guys:

Porter
Jacob
Singler
Crittle

That combination of guys seems like the best option together from what i have seen as far as performance and effort out of each individual.

I would probably replace Wilson with someone like Crittle, but other than that I agree with your starting lineup.

[UOducksTK1]

IMO the starting lineup should consist of:

Armstead
Williams
Longmire
Wilson
Dunnigan


Bench guys:

Porter
Jacob
Singler
Crittle

That combination of guys seems like the best option together from what i have seen as far as performance and effort out of each individual.

I would probably replace Wilson with someone like Crittle, but other than that I agree with your starting lineup.

Crittle? Kind of late in the game to be putting in a guy who has hardly played. Crittle should have been seeing serious minutes early in the year so we could know what his game is like.

[ducksrock]

IMO the starting lineup should consist of:

Armstead
Williams
Longmire
Wilson
Dunnigan


Bench guys:

Porter
Jacob
Singler
Crittle

That combination of guys seems like the best option together from what i have seen as far as performance and effort out of each individual.

I would probably replace Wilson with someone like Crittle, but other than that I agree with your starting lineup.

Crittle? Kind of late in the game to be putting in a guy who has hardly played. Crittle should have been seeing serious minutes early in the year so we could know what his game is like.

His game is BIG AND STRONG....But, Ernie doesnt do BIG AND STRONG....He has proven that over his period of HC...He cant seem to develop and/or utilize the big mans game.....They have come and they have gone...and not a damn one of em has amounted to a hill of beans...He played with a very decent big man, named Greg Ballard, but apparently wasnt paying attention..

[dthomas=ddixon]

If you remember, at the end of last year Crittle was just about the best player on our team & playing WAY better than Dunigan. Crittlehas all the ability to be a reat big man but EK has his head COMPLETELY up his butt & hasn't even given Crittle a chance.

[Tray Dub]

One of the most annoying things about Kent is his post-game interviews. They're ALWAYS pretty positive, even when we play like s***. Like for the AZ game, when we lost by 14 to an average at best team at home, and he says that we played really well, things are getting much better, we're just not making shots. What??? Nothing about turnovers, getting beat off the dribble, lack of hustle, etc.? Oh, and he also says we've "lost our swag". What a bunch of bullshit. No taking responsibility, no real reasons, just some abstract concept of confidence that we inexplicably lost.

I disagree with some of you guys on firing him in the middle of the season, but unless he pulls a miracle out of his ass and gets us to the tourney, I'm all for getting someone new. I think it should be Dunlap.

[duckgrad99]

If you remember, at the end of last year Crittle was just about the best player on our team & playing WAY better than Dunigan. Crittlehas all the ability to be a reat big man but EK has his head COMPLETELY up his butt & hasn't even given Crittle a chance.

Absolutely. I was really impressed with what I saw from Crittle last season. He is a phsical player and a rebounder, something this team could really use. So unless he is injured or did something wrong, I'm not sure why he doesn't play. Kent must really be a good preacher, because I would be pretty pissed off about playing time if I were some of these players.

[shear_j]

One of the most annoying things about Kent is his post-game interviews. They're ALWAYS pretty positive, even when we play like s***. Like for the AZ game, when we lost by 14 to an average at best team at home, and he says that we played really well, things are getting much better, we're just not making shots. What??? Nothing about turnovers, getting beat off the dribble, lack of hustle, etc.? Oh, and he also says we've "lost our swag". What a bunch of bullshit. No taking responsibility, no real reasons, just some abstract concept of confidence that we inexplicably lost.

I disagree with some of you guys on firing him in the middle of the season, but unless he pulls a miracle out of his ass and gets us to the tourney, I'm all for getting someone new. I think it should be Dunlap.

I feel that with a team as young as this that its important to stay semi-positive as much as you can. They are still growing as a team and still meshing so you dont want to stunt their growth by killing their confidence. That isn't to say that you shouldn't from time to time be negative, but its def. important right now to help their confidence grow than to berate them on how terrible they are.

[Tray Dub]

One of the most annoying things about Kent is his post-game interviews. They're ALWAYS pretty positive, even when we play like s***. Like for the AZ game, when we lost by 14 to an average at best team at home, and he says that we played really well, things are getting much better, we're just not making shots. What??? Nothing about turnovers, getting beat off the dribble, lack of hustle, etc.? Oh, and he also says we've "lost our swag". What a bunch of bullshit. No taking responsibility, no real reasons, just some abstract concept of confidence that we inexplicably lost.

I disagree with some of you guys on firing him in the middle of the season, but unless he pulls a miracle out of his ass and gets us to the tourney, I'm all for getting someone new. I think it should be Dunlap.

I feel that with a team as young as this that its important to stay semi-positive as much as you can. They are still growing as a team and still meshing so you dont want to stunt their growth by killing their confidence. That isn't to say that you shouldn't from time to time be negative, but its def. important right now to help their confidence grow than to berate them on how terrible they are.

Well I'm definitely not calling on him to start calling out his players in front of the media, but taking some blame and saying something about WHY we're losing would be nice. All he offers is vague terms like "swag". How 'bout he says, "We need to focus more on getting high-quality shots instead of jacking up long three's?" At least show some sign that you know what's going on with the team and are working on the actual solutions.

[pudgejeff]

I would fully agree with Kent's assessment of the AZ game...We missed so many gimme's it's not even funny...We played very well defensively and forced a lot of turnovers...We worked the ball inside a lot, and successfully creating wide-open shots from the outside like it's supposed to and no one could hit anything. I'm sorry but we actually did play really well we just shot terribly, and it wasn't from forced, or guarded shots like it is a lot of the time, we were getting whatever we wanted, just couldn't shoot

[UOducksTK1]

I would fully agree with Kent's assessment of the AZ game...We missed so many gimme's it's not even funny...We played very well defensively and forced a lot of turnovers...We worked the ball inside a lot, and successfully creating wide-open shots from the outside like it's supposed to and no one could hit anything. I'm sorry but we actually did play really well we just shot terribly, and it wasn't from forced, or guarded shots like it is a lot of the time, we were getting whatever we wanted, just couldn't shoot

Very well defensively? Sure the 18 turnovers were nice. But 26 fouls and allowing Arizona to shoot 52% FG is NOT good defense. And Arizona had some silly turnovers that I think the crowd deserved more credit for than our defense.