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Assistant Sports Editor:
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Best Bet
NBA: Toronto at Washington
5:00 p.m., TNT
Tuesday, February 5,2002
Pac-10 race getting more interesting by the week
Oregon jumps
into the polls
at No. 13 as five
Pac-10 teams
are ranked
in the top 25
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Technically, the Pacific-10 Confer
ence reached its midpoint last week.
But perhaps this
week is a more apt
measure of where the
teams of the Pac-10
stand. Because now,
everybody has met
everybody else.
Conference leader
Oregon — which
jumped back into the polls at No. 13
(Associated Press) and No. 15
(ESPN/USA Today) — has tangled
with the California schools. Arizona
has met the Bay Area squads. UCLA
and Southern California have made
introductions.
The dust has settled, and only one thing
is for sure: There are a lot of good teams in
the Pac-10.
The Pac-10 has the most teams — five
— ranked in the AP poll, a tie with Big
XII. None of those Pac-10 teams are
ranked higher than Arizona, which
stands at No. 11. Oregon is right behind
in No. 13, followed by UCLA (15), Stan
ford (20) and USC (25). California has a
better overall record than Stanford but
is still unranked.
All this makes this weekend’s games
very interesting. Oregon will face Stan
ford and California on the road. USC
and UCLA will butt heads for the sec
ond time this season.
The conference race will only get more
interesting, if that’s even conceivable.
Bibby-ronic
USC coach Henry Bibby fumed af
ter his team’s loss to Oregon on Satur
day, saying the behavior of the Duck
fans was a “disgrace,” among other
things, after fans taunted him with
personal verbal assaults throughout
the game.
But here’s an interesting tidbit. Ac
cording to Scott Wolf of the Los Ange
les Daily News, Bibby played down the
importance of crowd noise before mak
ing the trip to Oregon.
“I don’t address the issue (with the
team) about hostile crowds,” Bibby re
portedly said. “That’s not really an issue
in college basketball.”
Anyone who spoke to Bibby after Sat
urday’s game knew that for the Trojan
coach, the McArthur Court crowd was
an issue.
Deja-vuCLA
Maybe all UCLA needed was a little
kick in the pants.
The Bruins lost by 29 points at Oregon
Turn to Basketball, page 8
Despite two wins
from senior Eugene
Harris (right), who
improved his record
to 22-2 this season,
the Ducks lost to
conference rivals
Boise State and
Arizona State. The
Ducks are now 5-6
overall and 2-3 in the
Pac-10.
Adam Amato Emerald
Wrestlers fall twice
against Pac-10 foes
■ Oregon loses a match to No. 24 Boise State on
Friday and another to No. 10 Arizona State on Sunday
By Chris Cabot
Oregon Daily Emerald
The Oregon wrestling team returned to Eugene on Mon
day after losses to two Pacific-10 Conference opponents.
The Ducks are now 5-6 overall and 2-3 in Pac-10 action.
On Friday night, Oregon fell to No. 24 Boise State in a
19-13 decision that head coach Chuck Kearney said the
Ducks let slip away.
“There were some spots that we didn’t wrestle as well
as we needed to. Hopefully, the team will turn this around
and use it as a learning experience,’' Kearney said.
After leading the meet 6-3, the Ducks lost four consecu
tive matches to the host Broncos including a loss in the w
125-pound weight class by No. 12 Shaun Williams at the
hands of No. 4 Ben VomBaur.
In the final weight class with the score 16-13, Shane
Webster, a 174-pound redshirt freshman, had a chance to
tie the match for the Ducks but lost 13-11 in overtime
against Boise State’s Pat Owens.
Eugene Harris provided the Ducks with the opportunity
to tie the dual in the hnai match when he heat Natnan
Ploehn in a 19-5 major decision. Harris, who is now
ranked No. 6 in the nation according to Amateur
Wrestling News, was also victorious in his match on Sun
day over Arizona State’s Nick Frost.
Webster, who won by an 18-2 technical fall, and Casey
Hunt (149 pounds) were the only other Oregon wrestlers
to record wins over the Sun Devils. No. 10 Arizona State,
which improved its record to 9-2 overall and 6-0 in the
Pac-10, won the meet 30-11.
The Ducks were also hindered by having to give up six
team points at the 125-pound class because Williams
failed to make weight.
Turn to Wrestling, page 8
Men’s tennis knocks off No. 58 BYU before falling to Washington
■ Freshman Manuel Kost has
a big weekend for the Ducks,
staying unbeaten in singles play
By Peter Martini
for the Emerald
The theme for the Oregon men’s
tennis team this season has been to
improve the doubles game because
of the importance of winning the
first team point.
But over the weekend, the dou
bles play proved to be a non-factor.
After losing the doubles point to
Brigham Young on Friday, the
Ducks rallied to win four of six sin
gles matches and pulled off a 4-3
upset over the No. 58 Cougars.
On Sunday, the opposite hap
pened in Oregon’s 4-3 loss to its ri
val, No. 21 Washington. ■
“It’s funny how that worked out
this weekend,” said junior Jason
Menke, who
split his two
doubles and two
singles matches
over the week
end. “But if we
continue to play
well in doubles,
we’ll be in a po
sition to beat some of the better
teams in the country.”
The doubles team of junior Oded
Tieg and freshman Sven Swinnen
battled back from a 6-3 deficit to
beat Matt Hanlin and Dillon Ruby
of Washington 9-7.
After failing to convert on a
triple-match point, Menke and
sophomore Martin Pawlowski beat
Washington’s Alex Vlaski and
Christoph Palmanshofer in a tie
breaker, 9-8 (12-10).
Oregon lost its No. 3 doubles
match but still took the doubles
point and led the match 1-0. The
Ducks needed only to split the six
singles matches to beat the Huskies.
“Our strength is in our singles,
but we knew this was a tough
team to even get three wins
against,” Oregon head coach Chris
Russell said.
Oregon started off strong in sin
gles and were up one set in three
different matches, but being down
one set in the other three gave the
Ducks no room for error.
Tieg struggled throughout his
match against No. 44 Hanlin and
lost 6-2, 6-2.
“Oded had a chance to get into
the match early and battled tough,
and he has beaten this guy before,”
Russell said. “But Hanlin was able
to win those early games, and that
gave him the momentum and con
fidence to put the match away.”
Menke started off slowly in his 7
5, 7-5 loss to Ari Strasberg, trailing
3-0 in each set.
“Having my serves broken early
really hurts,” Menke said. “Before
you know it, you’re down 3-0, and
you have to battle to comeback the
entire set.”
After winning his first set 7-6 (7
3), Pawlowski lost the final two
sets 6-2, 6-4. The Ducks couldn’t
afford even one blown lead, so this
one was enough for Oregon to lose
the match.
Against BYU, the Ducks started
off slowly by losing two of three
doubles matches, including an 8
0 route by No. 10 Carlos Lozano
and Gert Vilms over Oregon’s Tieg
and Swinnen.
Leading 8-7, Menke and
Pawlowski had a chance to close
out their doubles match against
Nicolas Losee and Erik Nyman, but v
lost the match point, the game and
the match.
“It’s pretty frustrating to lose this
match after having chances to put it
away,” Menke said. “We need to
stay focused on our serves after we
break theirs — that was hurting us
out there.”
The Ducks then won four out of
the six singles matches, including
freshman Manuel Kost’s victory
over Lozano 7-6 (7-2), 6-3. Kost’s
performance was the story of the
weekend. His two singles victories
Turn to Tennis, page 8