Emerald
Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz
Sports Editor: Tim Pyle
Best Bet
NBA Basketball
Utah vs. Sacramento
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UO runners ready to rock in Regional
■ The return of junior Katie Crabb
helps the women in their quest for
an at-large bid to the NCAAs
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
Injuries have plagued her. Her team
mates have needed her. Her coach has
missed her. She’s back.
Just in time for the No. 25 Oregon
women’s cross country team’s most impor
tant meet of the season on Saturday — the
NCAA Western Regional in Portland —
Katie Crabb is coming back from an aggra
vating Achilles tendon injury.
As the season began, Crabb was looked
on to lead the youthful Ducks as the teams
top returnee, but things have not gone as
planned. The injury forced her to pull out of
the Clackamas Open on Sept. 25 and the
Pre-NCAAs on Oct. 16, as well as causing
her to miss the Pacific-10 Conference
Championships on Oct. 30.
The lone race that Crabb has finished
came back on Oct. 1 in the Notre Dame Invi
tational, where she was in line for fifth
place with one mile remaining, but was
forced to slow down due to pain and fin
ished 46th place.
All of that is forgotten now as Crabb is ea
ger to come back and help her team acquire
one of the 13 at-large bids for the NCAA
Championships that are
on the line this weekend
in Portland.
“I’m just going to go out
there and try to help the
team anyway that I can,”
Crabb said. “It’s been real
ly hard for me not to participate especially
when you consider that if everything had
gone as planned we could have been in the
top 10 or better.”
“There’s a sense of greater strength with
Katie in the line-up,” head coach Tom
Heinonen said. “We have more firepower
and maybe a little less pressure for the rest
of the girls. ”
The at-large process is confusing as ever,
so Oregon must simply concentrate on run
ning to Usability.
Turn to Women, Page 9A
■ With Steve Fein leading the way,
the men carry great expectations to
Portland for the Western Regional
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
One championship race down, two to go.
At the beginning of the season, head
coach Martin Smith wasn’t sure what to ex
pect from his team in his first season at the
helm of Oregon cross country.
Sure, he had two-time All-American
Steve Fein leading the way, but for the
Ducks to accomplish their national cham
pionship aspirations they had to rely on
fresh-faced newcomers like freshmen Jason
Hartmann, Tom Becker and Michael
Kasahun, a junior college transfer.
Now, as llth-ranked Oregon gets set to
take part in the NCAA Western Regional
Saturday in Portland, Smith has a much
better idea of the talent that his team pos
sesses.
“I’m extremely pleased with the way this
season has gone,” Smith said. “We had a
very solid team performance at the Pac-10
meet and that has been an excellent catalyst
for the races to come. ”
Of the field of seven runners that Oregon
will bring, Becker is the surprise of the
group.
“He’s a true freshman and has been one
of the guys who have consistently im
proved throughout the season,” Smith said.
“He will fill the spot as the seventh runner
because has made some nice strides in his
running where we feel he can have a nice,
solid performance.”
The Western Regionals serve as the most
critical race of the season because a berth to
the NCAA Championships on Nov. 22 is on
the line. Although Oregon has the inside
track to receiving one of the 13 at-large bids,
a mediocre performance in Portland could
be detrimental to the at-large process.
“We treat this meet like it’s tournament
play,” Smith said. “If we do well, we get to
move on, and if we don’t then we go home. ”
The top two finishers receive an auto
matic bid to Nationals, but that will be no
easy task as the field includes five teams
Turn to Men, Page 9A
Home exhibition gets
excited Ducks started
■ Oregon has a chance to see how
much it’s improved since an NIT
semifinals run last season
By Tim Pyle
Oregon Daily Emerald
The off-season has been a time of unbri
dled optimism for the Oregon men’s bas
ketball team.
Now we get to see what all the fuss is
about.
The Ducks play the first of their two ex
hibition games tonight at 7:05 p.m. at
McArthur Court, taking on the Basketball
Travelers, a group of basketball
vagabonds that wanders from campus to
campus warming up collegiate teams.
Oregon is getting started a week later
than most teams, but head coach Ernie
Kent said he took advantage of that extra
time.
“We like to teach in this program,”
Kent said, “and not having an exhibition
game last week has given us a little more
opportunity to bring these guys along”
Just how far the Ducks have come since
last season, when they finished 19-13 and
made a run to the National Invitation
Tournament semifinals, is what Oregon
fans are eager to see.
The Ducks have not earned a berth in
the NCAA Tournament since 1994-95,
but most preseason prognostications have
them finishing fourth in the Pacific-10
Conference and advancing to the “Big
Dance.”
Oregon’s perimeter players are often
mentioned as the class of the Pac-10, with
even ESPN.com ranking the Ducks’ back
court as the league’s best. Seniors Darius
Wright and Alex Scales lead the outside
attack, while junior David Jackson and
sophomores Freddie Jones and Anthony
Norwood add more firepower and athleti
cism to the mix.
Jackson is especially excited to play be
cause he had to sit out last season in ac
cordance with NCAA regulations after
transferring from Utah.
“Long-time waiting, especially forme,”
said Jackson, a graduate of Portland’s Wil
On Tap
What: Men’s basketball
Who: Oregon vs. Basketball Travelers
When: Tonight, 7:05 p.m.
Where: McArthur Court
son High School.
In his McArthur Court debut, Jackson
said he just wants to “play real hard and
hopefully make some things happen.”
Oregon does plan to get its up-tempo
game into gear.
“We’re putting our running game to
gether,” Jackson said. “We’re gonna try to
run 'em out the gym, pretty much.”
The Oregon frontcourt may be the
biggest concern heading into the season,
but it also boasts its share of talent.
Senior forward A.D. Smith is perhaps
the team’s most consistent player, and he
is joined by junior center Flo Hartenstein,
sophomore center Chris Christoffersen
and junior-college transfers Julius Hicks
and Bryan Bracey along the front line.
“We’ll get a chanceio see all these new
guys play, and we think they can play,”
said Smith, a graduate of Eugene’s
Churchill High. “I think people will be
excited about watching them.”
Smith and Jackson both admitted that
they don’t know much about the opposi
tion, but that doesn’t really matter. Exhi
bition games are inevitably about getting a
chance for players, new and old, to get
comfortable with each other as the regu
lar season rapidly approaches.
“We don’t know how competitive of a
game it’s gonna be, but we’re gonna be
ready to go,” Smith said. “If they’re ready
to go, we’ll have a good game on our
hands.”
Kent’s more than ready to watch and
find out what exactly his team needs to
work on before its Nov. 23 season opener
at Illinois-Chicago.
“I’m anxious and excited just to see
them play against another opponent, just
to see how we respond,” Kent said.
Jeffrey Stockton Emerald
Usually the distributor in Oregon’s attack, point guard Darius Wright shows he can finish too.