Ducks On A Roll Heading Into Thursday Night

By Jerry Ratcliffe

LOUISVILLE — Oregon hasn’t lost a basketball game since Feb. 23, the last of a three-game, road losing streak when the Ducks admittedly played “bad,” according to coach Dana Altman.

Since then, Altman’s team has reeled off 10 consecutive wins, ripping through the Pac-12 tournament, defeating regular-season champion Washington in the title game, then beating Wisconsin and UC-Irvine in the opening two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.

The Ducks may be a 12th seed in this event, and perhaps the only form of a Cinderella remaining in a very chalky Sweet Sixteen. They may have staggered, or, er, waddled, through two-thirds of the season, partly due to injuries, but have gotten themselves together just in time.

Clearly, facing No. 1 seed Virginia in Thursday night’s late game will be the biggest test for Oregon this season.

What Altman’s team brings to the table is precisely the things that have handed Virginia two of its three defeats this season — length, athleticism, and the ability to shoot the 3.

The Ducks start four (yes, four) players that are all 6-foot-9, along with a 6-2 guard. Redshirt senior Paul White, sophomore Kenny Wooten, and freshmen Francis Okoro and Louis King are all 6-9. Payton Pritchard, a junior, is the team’s guard in the system.

Oregon plays solid defense, but the defensive intensity really increased when Altman switched to the present “big” starting lineup. During the 10-game winning streak, the Ducks have held opponents to a 34.9 percent shooting average from the field and 23 percent from the arc.

That’s a real switch from when they allowed UCLA to score 62 points in the second half in that last loss. Since then, Oregon’s opponents are averaging only 62 points for the entire game.

With that kind of defense, Oregon’s point production has picked up a bit as well, outscoring opponents by nearly 18 points per game. Pritchard is averaging 16.3 points per game during the 10-game winning span.

In the two NCAA wins over Wisconsin and Irvine, the Ducks were more than accurate from the 3-point line, hitting 47 percent vs. the Badgers and 52 percent against the Anteaters.

Those numbers and lineup changes certainly caught the eye of the Cavaliers. In two of their three losses this season — the first one at Duke, and the last one to Florida State — those were factors that clearly affected Virginia.

“We talked about Florida State, Duke, Louisville,” Bennett said during Wednesday’s presser. “I don’t know if Louisville is that long. All experiences help, but I don’t think there’s a team that plays [Oregon’s] kind of defense in our league.

“You study film and you try to come up with a game plan and go after it. I don’t know if anybody is quite that long and that athletic or has someone as athletic as their interior player in Wooten,” Bennett said.

Wooten ranks third in Oregon career blocks with 165, and was named to the Pac-12 all-defensive team for the second year in a row. While he averages only 6.4 points per game, he’s very active on defense.

It will be an interesting matchup to see how Virginia’s bigs play against the sophomore forward.

UVA’s De’Andre Hunter, a projected NBA lottery pick at 6-7, said that Oregon’s length will probably bother the Cavaliers, just as Florida State’s did, and Duke’s did when the Blue Devils’ point guard Trey Jones was out of the lineup and they started bigger players.

“We’ll have to box out,” Hunter said. “But I feel like we’ll be fine.”

Meanwhile, Altman has his own concerns about Virginia.

“Virginia is a team that is 31-3,” the OU coach said. “They’ve established themselves. Their consistency level is off the charts, so we’re going to have to play really well. We know that.

“All areas of the game and especially the boards, we’re going to have to play awfully, awfully well to give ourselves an opportunity.”

The Ducks are going to attempt to chase Virginia off the 3-point line, which means sharpshooter Kyle Guy will have his work cut out in hunting open shots.

While UVA and Oregon have a history — Altman scheduled a home-and-home with the Cavaliers when he first took over the program in 2010, Virginia winning both — he notes that Bennett’s “Pack-Line” defense has transformed over time.

“It’s not the same defense that [Bennett] has run,” Altman said. “I think they get out a little bit more than what they previously have. They’re really pressuring the ball a little bit more with [Kihei] Clark. He’s picking up a little bit more full court. They’re a little more extended than it has been in previous years.”

Altman has really been impressed by Virginia’s rebounding.

“They’re a plus-5 on the boards, and that’s a big number,” he said. “Considering their competition level, to be a plus-5 is a big stat.”