Sports Editor:
Adam Jude
adamjude@dailyemerald.com
Assistant Sports Editor:
Jeff Smith
jeffsmith@dailyemerald.com
Friday, March 8,2002
Best Bet
Pac-10 Tournament:
Oregon vs. USC
6:17 p.m., FSN
Ducks survive scare, pull away from UW
■ Oregon outscores the Huskies 51 -22 in
the second half and will face USC tonight
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
LOS ANGELES — It hadn’t even been a week since they
had been celebrating their outright league title on the floor of
Pauley Pavilion.
But here the Ducks were, back in Los Angeles and realiz
ing that they had to prove once again that they were the
league’s best team.
Welcome to the revamped world of the Pacific-10 Confer
ence Tournament.
In the opening of the game, the Oregon men’s basketball
team didn’t appear ready at all for the league tourney, which
made its return after a 12-year absence.
There were missed shots, some
only hitting air. There were defen
sive lapses. There was even a 35
second shot clock violation.
But then the second half began.
And that’s when league champion
and No. 1 seed Oregon found its,
rhythm and ran all over eighth-seed
ed Washington, 86-64, Thursday af
ternoon at the Staples Center. The
ninth-ranked Ducks (23-7, 14-4) ad
vance on to tonight’s 6 p.m. semifinal
game against revenge-minded USC,
which dominated Stanford, 103-78,
in the second game Thursday.
“We talked about this being a con
ditioning game for us,” Oregon head
coach Ernie Kent said. “This was (the
Huskies’) NCAA championship
game. They had more energy than us in the first half.”
When Washington’s Errol Knight drilled a three-pointer to
put his steam on top, 31-18, with 5:53 to play in the first half,
it tied the biggest deficit Oregon has had all season.
“We were kind of tired in the first half,” point guard Luke
Ridnour said. “But in the second half we got our legs back un
der us. All it takes is a couple defensive stops on defense for
this team. We feel we can come back on anybody.”
Ridnour scored 11 points, but it was his first name coun
terpart, Luke Jackson, who kept the Ducks afloat throughout
the game. Jackson scored a game-high 27 points and played
tough defense on Washington sophomore Doug Wrenn, who
made just 6-of-14 shot attempts for 14 points.
The most admirable Duck performance of the afternoon
came from senior Freddie Jones, who scored 15 points in 34
minutes of play despite dealing with a nasty flu. Jones had a
102-degree temperature before game time and didn’t find his
offensive flow until the second half.
“In the first half, I told my teammates that they had to be
more aggressive because I didn’t feel that I was capable early
on,” Jones said. “But then I started feeling better.”
Subsequently, Oregon started playing better.
After a 12-minute delay because of shot clock difficulties,
the Ducks scored the first six points of the second half on con
secutive threes by Jackson and Jones.
Those treys began a 44-15 Oregon run that left little doubt in
Turn to Basketball, page 10
Scoreboard
Oregon 86, UW64
USC 103, Stanford 78
Arizona 73, ASU 56
Cal 67, UCLA 61
Oregon’s Luke Jackson (left) and Robert Johnson (center) battle for a rebound with Washington’s Doug Wrenn in the Ducks’ 86-64 victory Thursday.
Oregon will face USC tonight in the semifinals of the Pac-10 Tournament at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Tournaments worth the wait
In the last week, Oregon fans have been able
to see Shaquala Williams stare down the
Mendiola (Giuliana and Gioconda) sisters,
Arizona State stop the big red machine, and
Oregon State barely squeak by an equally-talent
ed USC squad.
Isn’t the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament
great?
And with the men’s play already started,
there’s sure to be at least a couple of close
games mixed in there, and possibly even a
couple of upsets. But then again, with the lev
el of competition in the Pac-10, upset is not a
word that is common.
It’s unfathomable to believe that the confer
ence waited more than a decade to reinstall
the men’s tournament, and just began the
women’s version this year. The play from the
Oregon women was about as intense as it gets
during the three games the team participated
in, and just about every other squad played to
its highest potential.
While other conferences
— most notably the Atlantic
Coast Conference and Big
Ten Conference — were
reaping the benefits of an ex
tended season in past years,
the Pac-10 sat on its behind
because of three schools.
Stanford, Arizona and
UCLA all dissented to play
ing the tournament, at least
until this season.
“It’s just asinine that we
beat up on each other for 18
games, then turn around
and exhaust whichever
team goes through to the finals in preparation
for the real tournament,” Arizona head coach
Lute Olson said recently.
Olson is one of two coaches who doesn’t par
ticularly care for the conference’s decision to
Turn to Hager, page 10
Despite flu, Jones heats up
late to energize UO in win
■ i ne senior scores 16 points
in the second half of Oregon’s
first-round win over Washington
By Jeff Smith
Oregon Daily Emerald
LOS ANGELES — In the postgame
press conference, a reporter asked Ore
gon senior Freddie Jones why he “was
n’t into the game” during the first half.
Before Jones could answer, Oregon
head coach Ernie Kent, seated next to
Jones at the podium, spoke up.
“He had a 102 temperature before
tip-off that finally got down to about
99 before he came back out of that
locker room,” Kent said. “Our doctors
were real concerned about putting
him out there.”
Jones finished with 15 points in Ore
gon’s 86-64 victory Thursday over
Washington at the Pacific-10 Confer
ence Tournament.
He said he began feeling sick
Wednesday and felt worse Thursday
morning. He had cold sweats. He felt
weak. But in no way was he going to
miss the game.
“I was always going to play.” Jone^
said. “I was just concerned that I would
n’t be much of a factor for our team and
that it would force me to sit out.”
The senior guard was visibly strug
gling with his stamina in the first half,
Turn to Pac-10. page 10