The Pit won’t help if Ducks don’t shoot
By PAUL BUKER
Of the Emerald
The steamy horror of The Pit may
provide the emotional verve Oregon needs
Thursday night against top-ranked UCLA.
Mac Court has been sold out for weeks and
the student ticket allotment of 4,000 was
gobbled up by Monday afternoon.
Pandemonium may mean points on the
scoreboard by virtue of intimidation. But
armed guards on the Bruin basket won’t
help if the Ducks shoot like they did in Los
Angeles a month ago.
Dick Harter’s team, thrust into UCLA’s
own chamber of horrors—Pauley
Pavilion—for the opening game of the
Pacific-8 season, had trouble finding the
hoop. Trouble like 7-for-23 at halftime.
Oregon’s poised stall should have
produced a 10-point lead. Instead the
Ducks were down 18-14.
The Bruins in the first 20 minutes were
held to their lowest score in history and
still owned the lead.
“If we’d have shot anywhere near like
we could have, we could have had a big
edge at halftime,” Harter said shortly
after UCLA mopped up a 64-38 win.
Consider the Ducks legally blind from
the floor in that one. Only 16 of 49 shots
found their mark and center Gerald Willett
was completely blanked.
He remembers the night vividly.
“I went 0-for-5, and all the shots I missed
were easy ones,” said Oregon’s 6-foot-8
freshman.
“We’re just going to have to shoot better
this time,” said Willett before the start of
practice Tuesday afternoon. “I guess
everybody was just scared down there. 1
know I was.”
From a first-year man who got his first
introduction to Pac-8 basketball via Bill
Walton, not surprising. But in his first
encounter with Super Bill there was more
Photo by Peter Weinrobe
_WALTON GIVES INGRAM THE BASELINE JUMPER
NCWSA swim test at Leighton
Unbeaten women’s team hosts meet
Sixteen teams from four states and
British Columbia will compete in the
Northwest College Women’s Sports
Association Swimming and Diving
championships at the University Friday
and Saturday.
The two-day meet, to be held in Leighton
Pool, has attracted entries from
Washington, Idaho and Montana as well as
Oregon. And Oregon swimming coach
Virginia Arvidson expects the University
of British Columbia to offer some good
competition.
Many of the Canadian Olympic swim
mers attend that school, Arvidson points
out, although UBC may not bring all their
competitors.
Oregon goes into the championships with
an impressive record of its own. Its team is
undefeated in dual meets this year and has
won the championship for three of the last
five years. Oregon was second to the
University of Washington in the northwest
finals last year.
“I think we’ll do quite well,” says Ar
vidson. She predicts, “we’ll be at least in
the top three, with a chance of winning.”
Swimming for Oregon this year are a
couple of standouts from last year’s teams
as well as some outstanding freshmen.
Sophomore Cindy Marks placed fifth in
the three-meter diving and ninth in one
meter diving at the national competition
last year. Arvidson says she expects a
first-second finish for Oregon divers in this
year’s northwest championships: Marks
first and junior Betsy Beckett, second.
Beckett placed in the national diving
competition.
Another sophomore, Sally Landis, is
defending northwest champion in the 200
yard freestyle and finished thirteenth in
the 100 yard individual medley at the
nationals last year.
Marks and Landis have already earned
positions in this year’s national meet.
Marks automatically qualifies because she
placed last year; Landis hit national
qualifying times in earlier meets this year.
Several Oregon freshmen have also hit
qualifying times: Marion Buvick, Debbie
Lee and Ellen Schrier. These three
women, with Gloria Nixon, are all
members of the freestyle relay team
which has also qualified.
Swimmers and divers who have not yet
met the qualifying times or scores will
have a final chance to do so at this
weekend’s meet. This year’s national
competition is in Moscow, Idaho March 15
17.
Admission to all the northwest cham
pionship events is free. Preliminary
competition begins at 2 p.m. Friday and
finals in those events begin Friday af
ternoon will be at 8 p.m. that night. More
preliminary competition runs Saturday at
9 a.m. and the meet concludes with finals
at 2 p.m. Saturday.
poise than apprehension. Walton got six
points and it was Bruin forwards Keith
Wilkes and Larry Farmer who killed the
dogged Ducks.
That first meeting with UCLA was
rather traumatic for Ron Lee, too. He led
all Webfoot scorers in the game with 10
points and was the only man able to come
close to making half his shots from the
floor.
“I was really nervous out there,” Lee
admitted. “I’d always wanted to play
UCLA and I think I was trying a little too
hard. We all were.”
Trying harder gave Oregon an
astounding sweep of Stanford and Cal. But
if you compare those two with John
Wooden’s Bruins you belong in a strait
jacket.
Harter s team will give it a try, line uie
last 66 opponents have. When they make
the introductions and 10,500 fans go nuts in
The Pit, all eyes will focus on the big man.
And when the game begins, the center of
attention will be in the middle. Walton and
Willett.
Willett’s getting help. The red-head can
beat anybody one-on-one.
“I’ll just have to front him, and as long
as I have weak side help, he can’t get the
ball.”
The last time it worked. Walton shot just
six times. And it became apparent as the
game wore on that the big man wasn’t
about to leave his post under the basket.
Willett couldn’t make the short jumper to
force the issue. Result: Walton pulled
down 13 rebounds and shut off the middle.
The philosophy is the same when the
Bruins work their feared zone press. “With
it,” says Harter, “UCLA dares you to
shoot the 15 or 16-foot jumper.”
Ronnie Lee palmed a practice ball and
smiled at the recollection.
“We missed a lot of easy shots. The last
time Walton just let Willett shoot—I don’t
know if he intimidated him or not.
“But everybody’s shooting the ball now.
We’re getting the shots when we need
them.”
The first thing Harter did at Tuesday’s
practice was drill his center on the quick
jumper from around the key. Willett
swished eight of 10.
Those are the shots that Walton only
reluctantly will go out to cover. At least
until somebody bums him or Wooden
begins screaming from the bench.
“Gerald’s shooting the ball now,” says
Lee of his teammate in the middle. “If
Walton gives him those shots again, he’ll
kill him.”
If Willett starts smoking, there’s still
Walton’s supporting cast to worry about.
The nagging fear that UCLA’s second
string is ranked No. 2 by a secret wire
service poll is compounded by Harter’s
admission of how the Bruins can be beat:
“It’s almost inconceivable to me,” he said
this week, “that a team with four or five
great shooters hasn’t been able to blow
them out . . . obviously we don’t have the
four or five great shooters.”
Three years ago Mac Court had those
shooters, and Oregon beat UCLA 78-65.
That thrashing administered by the Stan
Love-Larry Holliday team is still talked
about.
Comparisons between the Steve Belko
team of 1970 and Harter’s squad are far
fetched. Belko’s team didn’t believe in
defense.
Harter’s intense preoccupation with
shutting off the other guy has brought the
miracle Ducks to their unlikely position of
third place in the standings with a 6-3
record.
John Wooden’s philosophies sound like
corny cliches, but no one approaches his
success. The Bruins roll into Eugene
Thursday with 66 straight victories and 38
in a row in the Pac-8.
On the road, UCLA has taken 31 straight
but none of the Bruins enjoy Mac Court.
Last year Walton complained about the
showers, the dressing room, and had the
audacity to call Harter’s pride and joy “A
hole. ” The Webfoots are unbeaten at home
(9-0) and according to rumor Mac Court’s
floor is resurfaced after every home
series. If the Bruins don’t want to play
floor-bum basketball, the Ducks have a
chance to make it a game.
“If we play the best we can and play
good defense,” said Lee, “We’ll do it. It’ll
be a good game.”
Played in The Pit, Bill, not the hole.