Sports Editor:
Adam Jude
adamjude@dailyemerald. com
Best Bet
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6:30 p.m., TNT
Friday, May 3,2002
Kent aims for recruiting boost with USA
■The Oregon coach is given
reins to the USA Basketball
Junior Team, which will be
‘huge’ for Oregon’s recruiting
By Adam Jude
Oregon Daily Emerald
Ernie Kent admitted he had an ulteri
or motive in accepting a two-year post
as head coach of the USA Basketball Ju
nior National Team.
“It’s going to enhance our recruiting a
great deal,” the Oregon basketball coach
said at a press conference Thursday.
“Instead of me traveling from city to
city, camp to camp, all-star game to all
star game, all of those (recruits) will be
coming to me now in one location,
where we can evaluate and coach that
talent. That’s going to be huge for us in
the long run. It became a no-brainer in
the regards to the time commitment.”
Kent, the 2002 Pacific-10 Conference
Coach of the Year and an assistant on
last year’s gold medal-winning USA
Basketball Youth Team, said in his new
position this summer he will get a first
hand look at some of the top high
school basketball players in the country.
“Players, who in the past the Univer
sity of Oregon didn’t even have an op
portunity to even get a phone call from,
we will now be able to coach and men
tor for three weeks,” Kent said.
“After we went to the Elite Eight, the
question that comes up to me all the
time is ‘recruiting must be so easy and
wonderful right now’ — and it’s not. We
are still at the University of Oregon,
we’re still here in the Northwest —
there are elements with weather and
distance that we have to deal with as
well as notoriety, continuity and hype,
all of those things that Duke, Kentucky,
Illinois and Arizona — they’ve all over
come those things. But we’re still bat
tling to still overcome those things.”
Kent said his decision to coach the
Turn to Kent, page 12
Thomas Patterson Emerald
Oregon’s Ernie Kent will coach the USA Basketball Junior National Team this summer, which he said
was a ‘must do’ to keep the Ducks in the national spotlight.
Oregon tennis
team to battle
UNLV in NCAA
■The Oregon women’s tennis team is ‘peaking’ as
it prepares for its first round NCAA Tournament foe
By Peter Martini
for the Emerald
Two seasons of close battles and hard work have finally
paid off for the Oregon women’s tennis team.
Finishing 5-17 last season, the No. 39 Ducks (13-10) will
face No. 18 UNLV in the first round of the NCAA Tourna
ment next weekend at USC.
“I’m excited for our players because
we met our goals for this season,” Ore
gon head coach Jack Griffin said. “We
bounced back from a difficult year
last year.”
UNLV finished 20-3 overall on the
season and is riding a seven-match win
ning streak. They had 11 wins against
ranked opponents, but were only 2-2 away from home.
“They are a very good home team,” assistant coach Nils
Schyllander said. “But we get them at USC, where we’ve
played before. We know the courts.”
UNLV’s losses were against No. 2 Stanford, No. 8 Wake
Forest and No. 26 San Diego State.
Oregon, winners of six out of its last seven, will make its
third trip to the NCAAs in the last four years.
The Ducks lost to Mississippi State in the first round of
the tournament two years ago. In 1999, Oregon beat South
Florida before losing to Stanford in the second round.
“We’re peaking right now,” Schyllander said. “I would
n’t want to play us right now.”
Griffin said he expected his team would play at Stan
ford, but is pleasantly surprised by the seeding.
“Because of Sept. 11, they are trying to regionalize the
tournament,” Griffin said. “They are trying to keep us
within 400 to 600 miles from home. But I’m glad we get to
play at USC instead of Stanford.”
The Rebels hosted the first round NCAA match two
years ago and beat the Ducks. Seniors Janice Nyland and
Turn to Tennis, page 10
Ducks head to Nebraska
looking to flex their Quad
■Oregon faces its final
road test when the team
travels to the Midwest for
this weekend’s Quad meet
By Hank Hager
Oregon Daily Emerald
The Ducks will have a lot of baggage
with them on the plane that will take
them to Lincoln, Neb., for their up
coming meet.
Oregon, so far this season, has three
NCAA automatic marks, seven NCAA
provisionals, and 15 qualifiers for the
Pacific-10 Conference Championships
— and the Ducks say they haven’t
even reached their potential. With
only two weeks left before the confer
ence meet, the Ducks still have plenty
of time to fully realize their potential.
“There’s a lot more that can be
done,” Oregon head coach Tom
Heinonen said. “The marks that are yet
to come are just more difficult to get.”
Oregon has only two meets before a
majority of the squad will travel to
Pullman, Wash., for the Pac-10 Cham
pionships on May 18 and 19. The con
ference sets a limit of 24 athletes from
each individual school, and Oregon
has eclipsed that.
Better yet, the team is still not close to
being done. After competing against Ne
braska, Kansas State and Wyoming on
Saturday in a highly-competitive Quad,
the Ducks return to Hayward Field next
week for the Oregon Twilight.
If there ever was a road meet, the
Quad would be it.
Oregon has traveled east of the Pa
cific time zone only once during the
outdoor season. A majority of the team
competed at the Texas Relays in
Austin in early April.
“I don’t even know what to expect
there,” pole vaulter Becky Holliday
said of the Quad. “I think it’s going to
be windy. As long as the wind is going
in the right direction, I’m excited. I
think 14-5 is definitely a possibility.”
The competition the Ducks face
should be a good test.
Holliday, now the No. 2 pole vaulter
in the nation at 14-1 1/4 — UCLA’s
Tracy O’Hara has cleared 14-3 1/4 —
may not have a serious competitor, but
is still going into each meet looking to
better her career best of 14-4.
“I don’t care what the competition
is, I’m going to go in thinking this may
be Pac-lOs,” Holliday said. “It’s the
conditions I may have. Whatever it is,
I’m just going to do it.”
Turn to Women’s, page 12
Jonathan House Emerald
Eric Logsdon (74), who is qualified for the Pac-101,500-meter race, will
compete in the 5,000 at the Cardinal Invite today.
Men’s track
to solidify
postseason
qualifiers
■The Ducks will send 22
competitors to two meets
this week, looking for the best
candidates for the Pac-10 meet
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Oregon men’s track and field head
coach Martin Smith will need multiple
personalities to follow his athletes this
weekend. Or at least multiple bodies.
The Ducks will travel to two differ
ent meets, the Jesse Owens Track
Classic in Columbus, Ohio, and the
Cardinal Invite in Stanford, Calif.
The multiple-meet weekend is one of
two remaining chances to score
marks before Oregon heads to the Pa
cific-10 Conference Championships
on May 18.
That means the Ducks will be on in
the hunt to qualify as many athletes as
possible for the Pac-lOs. Though Ore
Turn to Men’s, page 12