Oregon prepared for close Pac-10 title battle
■ Who will win the Pac-10
is anyone’s guess as the action
heats up this weekend
By Scott Pesznecker
Oregon Daily Emerald
Last season, the race for the Pacif
ic-10 Conference championship
seemed to be a three-way race be
tween Oregon, UCLA and Stanford.
Arizona ended up in the mix too,
and as Pac-10 teams continued to
knock each other off, the question of
who would be champion became
more and more muddled. Oregon
didn’t win the title outright until
beating Oregon State in the last
game of the season.
But already, the makeup of this
season’s race is different.
Stanford lost key players such as
Milena Flores, who graduated, and
Jamie Carey, who quit the team at
the start of the season for medical
reasons. Now, point guard Susan
King is out for
the season
with a torn an
terior cruciate
ligament.
UCLA also
lost important
starters, in
cluding for
ward Maylana Martin, who now
plays in the WNBA. Arizona, also in
the Pac-10 title race last season, lost
its emotional spark with guard
Felecity Willis.
Finally, there is Oregon’s loss of
point guard Shaquala Williams, last
season’s Pac-10 Player of the Year.
So is there a clear-cut favorite to
win the Pac-10 title this season?
Oregon head coach Jody Runge
wouldn’t bet on it.
“People ask me all the time about
Pitino leaves Celtics,
assistant takes over
By Jimmy Golen
The Associated Press
BOSTON — In college and the
pros, from Hawaii to the Big East,
Rick Pitino always won.
Until he came to Boston.
The master motivator with the
magic touch resigned as coach and
president of the Boston Celtics on
Monday, 3 1/2 seasons after he was
brought in to revive a franchise that
once had been the NBA’s proudest.
He forfeited some $20 million left in
his contract.
Pitino’s legacy: a 102-146 record
and a history of roster churning that
left the team strapped under the
salary cap and unable to find its
groove.
“It has been a great privilege to
coach the greatest basketball tradition
in sports,” Pitino said in a statement
released by the team. “I wish we
could have accomplished more be
tween the lines, but I am proud with
the efforts of my staff and players.”
It was the second NBA coaching
change this season. Nate McMillan
replaced Paul Westphal in Seattle
on Nov. 27.
Jim O’Brien, Pitino’s longtime as
sistant, was appointed interim
coach, starting with Monday night’s
* game that ended in a 98-90 loss to
the Portland Trail Blazers, the top
team in the Western Conference. He
was given a generous ovation when
he was introduced before the game.
O’Brien was coach at Wheeling Je
suit College from 1982-87 and at Day
ton from 1989-94, leading the Flyers
to a 22-10 record and an NCAA berth
in his first season. He had been Piti
no’s assistant at Kentucky and with
the New York Knicks.
“He’s a guy I have been with a
long time,” O’Brien said after Mon
day’s shootaround. “It did not end
the way we had come into the fran
chise hoping it would.
“There’s nobody more disappoint
ed with Rick leaving than I am. That
being said, you don’t have too much
time in the NBA to get too up or too
down. We have to get on with life.
Rick wants us to get on with life. ”
Pitino had hinted since the end of
last season that he would leave if the
team did not improve in his fourth
season. But the tone of his comments
became more immediate as the
Celtics stumbled to a 12-22 record,
losing 11 of their last 14 games.
On Saturday night, it became
clear he had decided to leave. He
hugged Paul Pierce as he came out
of the game, and spoke afterward as
if his mind were made up.
Pitino skipped practice Sunday
and asked his wife to join him in Mia
mi to discuss his next move. Al
though he has been quoted as saying
he would like to stay in the NBA, he
already has been rumored for college
jobs from UNLV to UCLA.
“He looked at it more personally.
He’s not getting the job done as a
coach and he wanted to move on,”
said Celtics forward Antoine Walk
er, who also played for Pitino at
Kentucky. “He’s made a decision
that’s best for him and now he’s got
to move on.”
In an interview from Florida, Piti
no told WBZ-TV that he had a “ma
jor difference” philosophically:
“The fundamentals of basketball
weren’t necessarily getting through
to the team.”
“I love the guys on this basketball
team outside the line,” Pitino said.
“Between the lines we had differ
ences.”
Pitino played at Massachusetts,
served as assistant at Hawaii and
Syracuse and coached at Boston
University and Providence, two
programs he took from mediocrity
to the NCAA tournament. He spent
two seasons with the Knicks, taking
them to the playoffs in 1987-88 for
the first time in four years and win
ning the division in 1988-89.
Then he took over a Kentucky
team that had been on probation,
leading it to the Final Four three
times in eight seasons and winning
the NCAA title in 1996. Before join
ing the Celtics, he had just two los
ing seasons in 17 years.
The year before he arrived, the
Celtics went 15-67, earning the most
chances in the draft lottery for Wake
Forest star Tim Duncan. Pitino prom
ised fans he would have Boston back
in the playoffs in three years.
But San Antonio got Duncan and
won the NBA title in 1999. Instead of
Duncan and Keith Van Horn, who
was also coveted by Pitino, the
Celtics got Chauncey Billups and
Ron Mercer; both have since been
traded.
Pitino has since said he never
would have taken the job if he’d
known how the lottery would turn
out. By leaving now, he gave up
more than $20 million that re
mained on the 10-year, $50 million
contract he signed in 1997.
O’Brien said he would retain the
swarming defense that seemed to be
Pitino’s undoing. But where Pitino
was constantly shouting instruc
tions to the playf rs, O’Brien said he
expects the players to take more re
sponsibility for making the system
work.
the conference and I think it’s wide
open,” Runge said. “I think there are
a lot of very scrappy good teams in
this conference, and I think every
night we’ve got the bullseye on our
back. That’s just the way it’s going
to be, and it’s the way it was last
year.”
One of those scrappy teams
Runge refers to is Southern Califor
nia. Last season, USC was the only
team that swept Oregon. The Tro
jans were able to out-run and out
hustle the Ducks with their more
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athletic players.
The women of USC are 0-2 in the
conference so far, after losing to the
Washington schools on the road.
The first setback was a one-point
loss to the Cougars, and the second
was a triple-overtime battle against
Washington.
Bottom line, many teams in the
Pac-10 are dangerous. Oregon wit
nessed this firsthand last Friday
against Oregon State in a game that
went down to the final minute.
“Everyone’s going to put their
best basketball game together
against you,” Runge said. “And
you’ve got to be mentally prepared
for that.”
Stanford was picked to win the
Pac-10 title at the start of the season,
followed by Oregon.
However, the current ESPN/USA
Today coaches poll ranked the
Ducks at No. 20, followed by No. 24
Arizona and No. 25 Stanford. The
Associated Press poll wasn’t re
leased by press time.
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