Tough time to be a Duck
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Washington at Oregon, 7 p.m., 950-AM (no TV)
EUGENE, ORE. – To the untrained eye, it’s hard to tell if the Oregon Ducks are rebuilding or collapsing. The Ducks have lost their first four Pacific-10 Conference games and are the only remaining winless team in league play.
In the most recent defeat, leading scorer Tajuan Porter crossed coach Ernie Kent and was benched.
And on the eve of the game tonight with rival Washington, the first page of the Eugene Register-Guard’s sports section included the headline: “Pressure to win builds for Kent, Oregon.”
But Kent says the situation is being misread.
“Until you guys are in our environment every day with these guys, and until you know their backgrounds and where they’re from and what they’re up against and what we talk about in the locker room, it’s easy to talk on the outside about an unraveling,” Kent said after practice Wednesday. “We do not have an unraveling right now. We have a team that works hard for us every day.”
Kent admits his team would benefit from a win tonight, which would not only remove that zero from the record but also change the subject from his team’s weekend drama at Arizona State.
In that 76-58 loss, Kent pulled Porter from the game in the final minute of the first half, citing lack of hustle. When Kent approached Porter, the player seemed to wave off his coach. And while Kent has since said the gesture was misinterpreted, Porter didn’t play in the second half.
“That was my first time (being benched),” Porter said. “I just accepted it. I accepted the punishment or the consequences and I just moved on with it. You just have to learn from your experiences.
“… I was just frustrated at the time. … At that time I probably said something I shouldn’t have said and let some of my frustration out. But that’s with any player. It came out at the wrong time, and I had to accept the consequences.”
Coach and player say the situation is behind them, and Porter is expected to start tonight.
“No disrespect,” said Porter, a 5-foot-6 guard from Detroit. “We love each other. We’ve just got to get this team rolling.”
That projected as a challenge under even the best of circumstances this season. Oregon is rebuilding after losing three of its top four scorers – Malik Hairston, Maarty Leunen and Bryce Taylor – from last season’s 18-14 team.
The top returning scorer is Porter, who is struggling with the jump from complementary underclassman to leader and go-to guy.
“I used to tell Tajuan all the time: ‘You just need to do your thing, because everybody else is such good players,’ ” Kent said. “Well, now he’s in a role where guys don’t shoot it, they’re up and down in their confidence a little bit. That puts a little bit more pressure for him to do much more and score more or do I pass, do I lead, do I distribute? He’s kind of in a transition stage right now.”
Porter shares that leadership with fellow junior Joevan Catron, a 6-6 power forward who will bang against UW’s Jon Brockman tonight.
Elsewhere, the Ducks are young and inexperienced, with two freshmen and a sophomore filling out the starting lineup and a total of eight freshmen dotting the roster.
Meanwhile, the Huskies are looking to ease their own troubles after suffering their first Pac-10 loss in triple overtime against California on Saturday.
And coach Lorenzo Romar wants his team focused on the Ducks, even if he has to summon some distinctly faint praise to get the job done.
“They are a dangerous 0-4 team,” Romar said of the Ducks. “If they had a tournament right now for every 0-4 team in the country, they would win that championship, I don’t care what league you bring in. Their record only says they’re 0-4. They’re not an 0-4 team. Sometimes when you’re younger, you’re trying to figure it out: Who is the go-to guy on this team; who is supposed to do this at a certain time? It takes a certain amount of time to figure it out.”
Don Ruiz: 253-597-8808
blogs.thenewstribune.com/uwsports
Washington men
WASHINGTON (11-4 OVERALL, 2-1 PACific-10 Conference) AT OREGON (6-10, 0-4)
Tipoff: 7 p.m., McArthur Court, Eugene, Ore.
TV: None.
Radio: 950-AM.
Series: Washington leads 180-102 overall and 70-67 at Oregon. The teams have split the past two seasons, each winning at home.
Statistical leaders: For Oregon, G Tajuan Porter, 13.4 ppg; F Joevan Catron, 6.7 rpg and 2.7 apg. For UW, F Jon Brockman 16.2 ppg and 10.9 rpg; G Isaiah Thomas, 3.2 agp.
Scouting report: The Ducks are the only winless team in Pac-10 play. They are trying to avoid their first 0-5 league start since opening 0-11 in 1992-93. … The Ducks are drawing 7,896 fans per home game – 87 percent of capacity. … This will not be UW’s final game at Mac Court. Oregon’s new basketball arena is scheduled to open in time for conference play during the 2010-11 season. … Coach Ernie Kent is running a deep rotation: 11 Ducks average more than eight minutes per game, and only Porter is averaging more than 30. … Washington leads the Pac-10 in rebounding margin, while Oregon ranks last. UW also has become the highest-scoring team in the league, averaging 77.8 points per game. Oregon doesn’t lead the league in any statistical category and is last in scoring margin, scoring defense, field goal percentage, field goal percentage defense and 3-point field goal percentage defense. … Brockman is seven rebounds short of matching Doug Smart’s school-record 1,051 career rebounds. Passing Smart will move Brockman to eighth on the Pac-10 career list.
Next: 7 p.m. Saturday, at Oregon State, Gill Coliseum, Corvallis, Ore.
Don Ruiz, The News Tribune
