30Duck

I have to give credit to one of the women who were announcing the Oregon-Stanford game. Before it was over she said that it would be wrong if the Ducks dropped in the polls because of the loss, stating, "their aren't 10 other teams better than Oregon."

The Ducks came from 10 points down at halftime, and ended up beating Utah, 79-73. What was really impressive about the win is that it was accomplished without two of the team's best players.

It was only two years ago that the Huskies won the regular conference title, however, in the conference tournament, Oregon beat them in the championship game, 68-48.

The rest of the teams are on notice. UCLA & Stanford needed to play their best games of the season to get wins over this Ducks team that is still learning to play together. There will be rematches this season, and next season the Lady Ducks will be even better.

Not only was that game a complete "hose job" in itself. Imagine the trajectory the team would have been on with the championship?

It's even more fun to compare the corresponding Men's basketball wins between the Ducks and the Huskies. The Huskies have 190 W's, they had 20 or more 4 times. The Ducks compiled 259, 30 or more W's twice,. So far this season, the Huskies have 1 W, the Ducks have 9.

That's it exactly. Whether it be Thompson, or any of the other on the roster, the position is wide open for next season. Thompson's talent jumps out on the film, he is dynamic in ways that Shough doesn't come close to matching.

To be fair, the Trail Blazers did not have a 1st round pick in this draft, History tells us though that they would not have picked a Duck. The Trail Blazers have never picked a Duck. In 1976, Ronnie Lee was the 10th pick, selected by the Phoenix Suns, Portland had the 8th pick, and used it on Wally Walker, from Virginia.

That has certainly been the case at Oregon.

From the first game, Payton looked like he belonged. Staying 4 years, going through the stages he did at Oregon helped I think. Payton has a full understanding of what kind of player he is, and is perfectly willing to do what his coach wants, because Payton is only interested in winning.

It does doesn't it?

Taylor Chavez was one of many Ducks to have a great game against the Bears.

I guess we'll find out how attractive Oregon is, that is the process, and sometimes it works in strange ways. When the basketball team needed a new coach to replace Kent, Oregon went after Tom Izzo, Rick Patino. They weren't interested, so Oregon looked around, and found, Dana Altman.

If any coach deserves a raise, it's Kelly Graves.

The last time the Lady Ducks lost 3 conference games in a row was in 2016-17. After dropping consecutive tough games to outstanding teams, UCLA & Stanford, they get California, 0-5 in Pac-12 play. Cal's game against Oregon State was postponed. In their last game, Cal lost to Arizona, 69-33.

A big reason for the discrepancy in wins at Utah and Colorado is that Colorado is quite a bit better than is Utah. Credit to the Ducks for not slipping up and letting the problem in Colorado spread.

A very valid concern, and probably a nonstarter in any discussion, if his family doesn't want to move to Oregon.

Especially impressive as Utah started the game averaging 9 TO's a game. Oregon had 7.