Sports Editor:
Adam Jude
adamjude@dailyemerald.com
Assistant Sports Editor:
Jeff Smith
jeffsmith@dailyemerald. com
Wednesday, April 3,2002
Oregon Daily Emerald
Best Bet
MLB: San Francisco at Los Angeles
7 p.m., ESPN2
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Where to begin, when summing up this
season of seasons for the Oregon men’s bas
ketball team?
We could start with the history, and how
the Ducks took red ink to the archives,
rewrote every book in every Oregon
basketball library.
Or we could start with
the future, and how it looks
with the big holes left by
Freddie Jones, Chris
Christoffersen and Anthony
Lever, among others.
Or we could start with
the present.
“I’m disappointed that
this team’s over with,” Luke Ridnour said.
“I’m going to miss being around these guys.”
The Oregon players, dejected after a loss to
top-seeded Kansas in the Elite Eight of the
NCAA Tournament, could only think after
wards of what it will feel like to be without
their friends and teammates for the next few
months. The words of the Ducks emphasized
what head coach Ernie Kent said all season,
that his team is more a family than a basket
ball team, much more of a group than a group
of individuals.
“Experiencing what we have this season
has been something really special/’ forward
Luke Jackson said. “I’m really going to miss
all the guys on the team that are leaving.”
And what of those guys leaving? Jones has
only solidified his prospects to be a first
round NBA draft pick in recent weeks. On
top of the 32 points he scored in the Elite
Eight game and the game-winner he hit
against Texas in the Sweet 16, Jones was the
runner-up in the ESPN Slam Dunk contest at
the Final Four on Saturday, led the NABC
All-Stars with 15 points in an exhibition win
over the Harlem Globetrotters on Friday and
was named a Third-Team All-American by
the Basketball Times last week.
But despite his exciting future, Jones said
we won’t forget his past.
“My teammates have made it real fun for
me this year,” Jones said. “They brought be
back to the focus that this is a game and that
we can have fun with it. That’s the part I’m
going to miss the most, just being around
them and playing with them on a
day-to-day basis.”
Christoffersen could go in the NBA Draft
because of his skill and his size. For Lever,
Ben Lindquist, Mark Michaelis and Krist
ian Christensen, their basketball future
is uncertain.
Kent gushed over his seniors to the point
where he couldn’t form complete sentences
any more.
“Just the char
acter of
Michaelis,
Lindquist
and
Lever,”
Kent said,
when asked
what he’ll
miss the
most about
his seniors.
“And I can’t
say enough
about Fred
die and
Chris.”
While it
will be
hard to re
place the
athleticism
of Jones, the
Ducks will get
help in the
post when Matt
Short and Ian
Turn to Men’s, page 12
Ducks defy expectations, now
they must do it again next year
The first time your heart sank like a sub
marine —if you’re an Oregon basket
ball fan —was somewhere around De
cember 10. 2001.
That’s when you watched the Ducks lose,
on national television, in a nail-biter to
Minnesota on the road, their third-straight
loss to sub-par competition.
That’s when you made your spring break
plans, scoured the Internet for some Fiesta
Bowl hype and wrote off another basketball
season like a tax break.
Little did you know that the 2001-02
campaign would turn into an unexpected
present, a gift from a team that will be writ
ten off only at the top of the Oregon record
books.
Soon after the football smoke cleared, the
basketball squad had swept Arizona, beat
Stanford for the first time and was riding a
wave of media hype to the very pinnacle of
the Pacific-10 Conference. Road losses at
Washington, California and Stanford tagged
Oregon with the “road woes” label, but the
Ducks would peel off
that label later.
At home Oregon con
tinued to dominate with
a brand of play that pre
viously existed only in
poetry and fiction. Soar
ing dunks, laser-accurate
treys, alley-oops that de
fied all of Newton’s laws.
And when the season
came to a close, the
Ducks were winning the
type of games they lost
in the preseason, against
teams far better than any
piecemeal preseason foe.
The final doubters were
cut down by last-minute wins at USC and
UCLA that sealed the Ducks’ first outright
Pac-10 title since 1939.
Then came the NCAA Tournament run
that began with the surprising revelation that
the Ducks would be a No. 2 seed in the Big
Hockaday
T\vo minutes for
crosschecking
Dance. Oregon would disman
tle No. 15 Montana, survive No.
7 Wake Forest and barely sur
vive No. 6 Texas before running
into a rebounding wall in top
seeded Kansas.
Now go into the Oregon locker
room, deep within the bowels of the
Kohl Center in Madison, Wis., after
that game.
If at that moment you could step
into Guy Pearce’s Time Machine and
set the clock for Dec. 10, 2001, you
would see yourself sitting in front of
the television with that worried look \
in your eye. You have your pen out,
ready to write off the Ducks. But tell
yourself that in a few months, Oregon
will be Pac-10 Champs, Elite Eight par
ticipants and the undisputed best team
West of Lawrence, Kansas.
You’d be ecstatic.
But not the Ducks.
Turn toHockaday, page 12
Photo courtesy Geoff Thurner Oregon Media Services
Oregon State’s Hoffman hurls no-hitter in softball Civil War
Silencing
the Duck
bats, Monica
Hoffman
threw her
third no-hitter
of the season
in a 1-0 win
By Chris Cabot
Oregon Daily Emerald
In its Pacific-10 Conference home
opening game, the Oregon softball team
was held hitless by an Oregon State
squad ranked No. 14 in the country and
a pitcher on top of her game. The
Beavers won 1-0.
The no-hitter on Tuesday at Howe
Field was the third of sophomore Moni
ca Hoffman’s career, tying her for first
all-time at Oregon State. Hoffman, who
has not allowed an earned run in her last
33 innings of work, has notched all three
no-hitters this season.
The Ducks’ record dipped to 18-12
overall and 0-3 in the Pac-10, while the
Beavers improved their record to 30-9
overall (3-0 Pac-10).
Hoffman’s no-hitter
actually began on
March 16 when the
game was postponed
due to snow. On that
day, after the Beavers’
top half of the first in
ning, Hoffman got
Lynsey Haij to pop out
to second, walked Amber Hutchison and
then had Alyssa Laux with a 2-1 count
when the game was called due to the
wintery conditions.
When the game resumed on Tuesday,
Hoffman threw one pitch to Laux to
record a strikeout and another to Andrea
Vidlund that resulted in a groundout to
second and the end of the first inning.
Hoffman allowed only one Oregon
baserunner through the remainder of the
game — catcher Jenn Poore walked in
the fifth inning.
“Just a great pitching performance by
Hoffman today,” Oregon head coach
Brent Rincon said. “There is a lot of
credit that needs to go to her. She kept
us off-balance today. She was in com
mand the whole time.”
Oregon senior Connie McMurren
kept the Ducks in the game with an out
standing pitching performance of her
own, allowing only five hits and one run
in a compete-game effort.
“We jumped on her early and got
some big hits, but she settled in,” Ore
gon State head coach Kirk Walker said.
“She is a great pitcher. She always
throws well against us.”
The Beavers’ lone run came in the sec
ond inning when shortstop Kelly
Turn to Softball, page 12