- ©regon$iR€meraU»
T\iesday
March 2,1999
Best Bet
NBA Basketball
Utah at Portland
7 p.m., Fox Sports
Season Review
Oregon’s rocky season ends quietly
Chuck Kearney called his first
season as head coach a year
of transitions for the Ducks
By Scott Pesznecker
Oregon Daily Emerald
On Sunday night, a season that began
with so much potential ended quietly
with a sixth-place finish at the Pacific
10 Conference Championships in Palo
Alto, Calif.
It was a fitting end for the Oregon
men’s wrestling team.
While the Ducks finished sixth over
all, four Oregon wrestlers will travel to
State College, Pa., to compete in the
NCAA tournament.
These four wrestlers — 165-pound
Sean Morgan, 197-pound Chael Sonnen,
157-pound Daryl Christian and 184
pound Doug Lee — have been the
Ducks’ backbone throughout the sea
son.
But despite their individual strengths,
the big four couldn’t make up for the
problems the team had in its lower
weights.
“Things that we couldn’t control hap
pened to us,” Oregon’s first-year head
coach Chuck Kearney said. “It was hard
to pick out just one thing; we had ups
and downs individually.”
The Ducks dominated in their first
three dual-meets of the season. UC
Davis fell to Oregon, 38-6, on Dec. 12,
Southern Oregon was beaten, 25-9, the
following weekend, and Stanford was
handed a 28-9 loss on Jan. 6.
It was in that Stanford match that the
Ducks first forfeited at 133 pounds,
moving freshman Kenny Cox down to
the 125-pound weight class where Cox
said he was more “efficient.”
Oregon handled Stanford, but the end
result of the forfeit would prove disas
trous later on. The Ducks lost to Cal
Turn to WRESTLING, Page 8
Nick MedleyvEmerald
Sophomore Ooug Lee, who qualified at 184 pounds Sunday for the NCAA Championships on March 18, corrals
Oregon State’s Isaac Weber at McArthur Court on Feb. 12. Lee eventually won by major decision.
Oregon should
surpass UCLA
in coaches poll
All season long, UCLA has been re
garded as the top team in the Pa
cific-10 Conference. The Bruins
started off No. 7 in the country
and did that ranking justice by winning
their first nine conference games.
uregun, unranxea
at the time, took
UCLA to the brink at
Pauley Pavilion on
Jan. 10, losing by just
four points after
leading the Bruins
for most of the sec
ond half. The loss
confirmed that
UCLA was still the
team to beat.
And that’s exactly
what Oregon did.
The Ducks not only
beat UCLA on Feb. 4
Oregon
Women’s Notes
Allison
Ross
at MCArtnur uourt, they annihilated
them, 106-79. It was the Bruins’ worst
defeat of the season and their first confer
ence loss.
Since that victory, Oregon has ascended
to the Pac-10 lead and is currently in the
midst of a nine-game winning streak. Stan
ford defeated the Bruins, 87-84, on Feb. 12
at Pauley Pavilion, which took UCLA out
of sole possession of first place in the con
ference.
Despite sitting atop the Pac-10 with the
Bruins, Oregon never caught up to UCLA
in the polls. This week, Oregon is ranked
No. 15 in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll
and UCLA is 16th. But in the USA
Today/ESPN Top 25 women’s college bas
ketball coaches poll, UCLA is No. 15 and
Oregon is No. 17.
Why Oregon doesn’t get the respect of
the coaches is beyond me. First of all, the
Bruins suffered their third Pac-10 loss of
Turn to WOMEN, Page 6
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