Some Friday morning thoughts to think about last night's 82-57 throttling of rival and first-place Washington Huskies.
Was that the biggest win in Dana Altman's year and a half or so here at Oregon?
Oregon went into the game with a sliver of hope getting into the NCAA Tournament without having to win the Pac-12 Tournament and left with many wondering if they could win the regular season and Pac-12 Tournament as well.
Sure the wins over Creighton might be bigger last season as Oregon won two games in elimination settings and won the CBI. Or how about the UCLA blowout win the Ducks had in last season's Pac-12 Tournament? Maybe the Washington game last season when Oregon beat the Huskies when they were ranked in the top-20.
Not sure any of those games were bigger wins than last night.
Oregon went into that game down two games in the race for first place with first place Washington coming into town. A loss would all but eliminate the Ducks from getting into the picture for the Pac-12 battle.
This team has already had that belief that if they could get things together they could be a dangerous team and could contend for the Pac-12 title.
So with their backs to the wall of falling behind the Ducks came out and played their best game ever under Dana Altman and notched a huge win for the program as they continue to rebuild.
A big reason the Ducks were able to get the win last night was because of junior forward Carlos Emory and his 18 points and eight rebounds off the bench.
Emory has come alive as of late and in the past four games has scored in double-digits three times and is averaging 10.7 points-per-game while also grabbing six rebounds per contest.
In the other 20 games the Ducks have played this season Emory has only scored in double-digits once coming in December against BYU when he scored 11 points.
In Emory's first eight conference games he's averaged just 2.75 points but again, in the last four games he's scoring at 10.7 per game.
Last night Altman and Emory's teammates both praised Emory for his play as of late and noted how important he has been for the Ducks providing a spark off the bench.
In my opinion Oregon's chances of getting to the NCAA Tournament might rest in the play of the former junior college transfer in Emory.
He provides a skill-set that Oregon hasn't had before. He's a 6-foot-6 230 pound forward that can run up and down the court and use his athleticism either on the block posting up a smaller defender or taking his bigger and slower defender outside and driving past him.
How quickly will this team however get over the dominating performance on Thursday and focus on a Washington State team who also dominated their Thursday night game at Oregon State?
The big win against Washington will mean nothing if the Ducks fumble away the Washington State game on Saturday. They've done it in the past as well. A big win against Stanford on Thursday was wasted by a home loss to Cal. That type of play can't happen this Saturday if Oregon wants a chance to be in the Pac-12 race.
MattPrehm said...
Great question.
I've been saying from the start of the year the Ducks would be better in December than in November, better in January than December, and better in February than in January, ect.
This team keeps getting better and better and better. The big thing is that when the season started they had issues scoring in bunches. Than they were able to put together games where they looked good for 3-6 minutes at a time. Then it was looking good every 6-9 minutes. Now it's looking good for about 10-15 minutes a half.
I still don't think we've seen Oregon play a full complete game but Thursday against Washington was about as close as possible to a complete game.
The scary thing is I think this team can still get better and they've got the horses to compete with every team in the Pac-12. If the Ducks find themselves into the NCAA Tournament they might be a very very tough out.
"Every coach in America knows Dana Altman is a great coach," is something Lorenzo Romar said about Altman on Tuesday and it's true.
Find me a game this season where Oregon was out-classed talent wise AND out-coached? You can't. Altman and his staff have been terrific putting these guys into position to get wins.
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