Tuesday
Best Bet
MLB Playoffs: Seattle at N.Y. Yankees, ALCSGame 6
NBC, 5:15 p.m.
SPORTS EDITOR: JEFF SMITH Smittside@aol.com
Senior forward Bryan Bracey will be looked upon to fill the large void left from the graduated A.D. Smith.
Emerald
Sophomore Kourtney Shreve starts at point guard this season in place of the injured Shaquala Williams.
■The Oregon men's basketball team
loses three key players, but returns
with a healthy dose of experience
and a quartet of talented freshmen
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
Head coach Ernie Kent smiles when read
ing the national projections for his 2000-01
Oregon men’s basketball team because it ex
cites him even more than he already is.
Not because of what the predictions say,
but rather for what they don’t say.
For example, from CBSSportsline.com:
“Smith, Scales and Wright will all be gone
and they will be hard to replace. Oregon is
likely looking at a season in which a .500
record and an NIT bid will be more realistic
goals than contending for the Pac-10 title. ”
Kent concedes that losing three valuable
seniors like A.D. Smith, Alex Scales and Dar
ius Wright will hurt, but points out that
there’s key components to his team that the
national media can’t see.
“Sometimes you read Dick Vitale and all
those other magazines, and they’re doing an
analysis of our team from the peripheral,”
said Kent, while addressing reporters at Ore
gon’s annual media day last week. “They see
what we lost, but they don’t understand all of
the inner workings. Do the players get along?
Are they on the same page? That is what I’m
concerned with.
“Someone told me the other day, “Wow,
that is the most together basketball team I’ve
ever seen.’”
It is comments like those that have Kent
genuinely thrilled “about the anticipation
and the prospects of where we are going as a
basketball team.”
Oregon is coming off a year in which it
went 22-5 — its best record in 55 years—and
reached the NCAA Tournament for only the
second time since 1961.
The Ducks held its first practice Saturday,
Turn to Men’s, page 8
■Talent must overshadow a lack
of perimeter depth in order for the
Oregon women’s basketball team to
win its third-straight Pac-10 title
By Scott Pesznecker
Oregon Daily Emerald
Angelina Wolvert believes the Ducks are
still No. 1 in the Pacific-10 Conference.
Oregon's junior forward is not worried
about the loss of star point guard Shaquala
Williams or the bad luck of the injury-prone
Lindsey Dion.
None of that really matters too much,
Wolvert said, because the Ducks have
enough talent to compensate for their losses.
Enough talent, she added, to secure a third
straight Pac-10 title.
When hearing the results of the preseason
coaches poll, which picked Oregon to finish
second in the conference to Stanford, a light
hearted Wolvert said, “Were we really? What!
We were picked second to Stanford? Are you
serious? That’s a bunch of crap! That is awful! I
don’t think so, I don’t think so. That is terri
ble, I’m sorry they chose Stanford over us.
“Our team can form and evolve into what
we need to be to win a Pac-10 champi
onship.”
Wolvert isn’t the only member of the Ore
gon women’s basketball team who believes
the Ducks can overcome adversity, as was ob
vious Friday at McArthur Court when the
women suited up to meet the media.
“I don’t think a three-peat is out of the
question in any way, shape or form,” Oregon
head coach Jody Runge said. “I just think it’s
going to take a lot of work and people ure go
ing to have to step up and share the limelight.
We’re very capable of doing that. The team
has came back in the kind of shape to have
the best season they can have.”
Much has happened since the Ducks’ ago
nizing loss to UAB in the first round of the
NCAA Tournament last March.
Oregon lost its leading scorer when
Turn to Women’s, page 8