sports
The holiday’s over as Cal, Stanford arrive
By DAN UNDAHL
Emerald Sports Editor
Winter vacation was anything but a holiday for the Oregon basket
ball team as it spent considerably more time diving after loose balls and
shooting lay-ins than it did huddled around a fire or wolfing down turkey
and mincemeat pie.
The vacation was equally absent on the basketball court where
Oregon opponents didn’t extend much in the way of the holiday spirit,
handing the Ducks three losses and two bare wins in eight games.
But if all that seemed bad for Oregon, the worst has yet to begin.
Starting tonight when California invades McArthur Court for an 8:05
p.m. tip-off, the party is truly over as Pacific-8 conference play opens.
For the first 12 games, of which Coach Dick Harter’s dub has won
nine, a loss or a win didn’t carry half the importance either will once
league play begins. The Padfic-8 season is the road to post-season
play and Friday’s and Saturday’s games with Cal and vastly improved
Stanford are the first two steps along that 14-stop trek to the NCAA
playoffs.
Despite the insight 12 non-league games would be expected to
provide, Harter is now as unsure where that trail will end as he was when
fall practice opened back in the sunshine of October.
“This is just like the start of the season," shrugged Harter. “We could
finish anywhere from first to eighth.”
A better bet would be somewhere in between. During a non-league
schedule that featured some rejects from a Mel Brooks comedy as well
as a couple of toughies, the Ducks demonstrated enough promise to
make an upper-division finish seem likely.
California and Stanford, generally considered to be the weakest
travelling duo in the league, will give Oregon its first hint of what to
expect during its conference travails.
Coach Dick Edward’s Cal team has won six of 10 games, including
a thrilling one point win over talented San Francisco. Stanford is off to its
best start in 14 years (8-3) and has an 86-73 whipping of Colorado State
to its credit. Colorado State upended Oregon 61-50 in the first round of
the Far West Classic in Portland. The Ducks went on to finish seventh in
that tournament.
Harter sees both bay area schools as being very similar and
foresees a similar necessary ingredient to be successful against them.
“Both Cal and Stanford are the same. They both like to play at afast
tempo and they both play aggressive and hard," said Harter. “The only
time we beat them is when we play harder.”
Last season Oregon played harder three of the four meetings, but
the lone Duck loss was the most memorable game of all; a five overtime
107-102 Cal victory in Berkeley.
The key to the Golden Bear attack that night was 5-foot-9 guard
Gene Ransom. Ransom scored 36 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to
almost single-handedly do in the Ducks.
Ransom has been at the top of his game this season, hitting for an
average of 19.2 points per game and doling out 4.8 assists per game.
Also playing weH for the Bears has been 6-foot-11 center Tom
Schneiderjohn. The junior postman is hitting for 11.9 points per outing
while grabbing 9.5 rebounds.
While Cal. with 10 lettermen returning, was anticipated to make
itself felt in die Pac-8, Stanford was not. But Coach Dick DiBiaso s
Cardinals are making believers out of the rest of the league, riding the
play of sophomore Kimberly Belton (15.9 point average) to eight wins,
including a convincing 76-61 upset of nationally powerful Providence.
Along with Belton, the Cardinals have been receiving balanced
scoring from Mark Pitchford (11.9), Jay Carter (11.1) and Jeff McHugh
(11.0). Carter and McHugh are both lettermen, but Pitchford is just a
freshman and makes a sophomore and a freshman Stanford's two top
scorers.
Oregon’s youth movement is in full swing too with freshman Phi!
Bamer, Mike Clark, Stu Lyon and Felton Sealey all playing substantial
amounts of time. But the league season will be their first exposure to
Pac-8 play, and as anyone who has followed file Pac-8 knows, it is
certainly no holiday.
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The kind of defense Oregon’s John Murray (31) applied to Illinois' Reno Gray (10) will key the Ducks' effort
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