Oregon Daily Emerald
Sports Editor
Peter Hockaday
peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com
Sports
Monday, November 25,2002
Best bet
Monday Night Football:
Philadelphia at San Francisco
6 p.m., ABC
Mark McCambridge Emerald
Oregon State's Aric Williams (8) pulls down Allan Amundson in Oregon State's 45-24 Civil War victory.
Not so Civil War:
Penalties abound
Oregon can’t overcome an
emotionally charged first half
of 11 penalties in the Civil V\for
Adam Jude
Senior Sports Reporter
CORVALLIS — The Ducks only
flagged themselves.
“Penalties killed us,” senior wide re
ceiver Keenan Howry said after Ore
gon’s 45-24 loss to Oregon State.
The flag-fest began early and ended
late in the 106th Civil War. Oregon
and Oregon State combined for 19
penalties for 172 yards in the first half
Saturday, with the Ducks (11 penal
ties, 95 yards) taking the brunt of the
officials’ yellow wrath.
“I told (the Ducks) at halftime that
we’d made enough mistakes to last a
lifetime,” Oregon head coach Mike Bel
lotti said. “But we could change that
with enough memories to last a lifetime
in the second half. Unfortunately,
they’re not going to be good memories.”
The Ducks (7-5 overall, 3-5 Pacific
10 Conference) were flagged for three
of the four personal foul penalties in the
game. Bellotti said the Ducks had more
penalties than he’d ever seen.
“We fell victim to the emotion of the
game,” Bellotti said. “Some were
younger players (who made the fouls),
but that’s no excuse.”
Overall, the Ducks committed 13
penalties for 105 yards. Oregon State
(8-4, 4-4) was flagged 10 times for 107
yards. Oregon State entered the game
as the most penalized team in the Pac
10 with 100.5 penalty yards per game.
Oregon averaged 73.7 penalty yards per
game, third-most in the conference.
Oregon overcame a 17-3 second
quarter deficit to tie the game at 17
with a little more than three minutes to
play in the first half. After an OSU
three-and-out, the Ducks got the ball
back with less than two minutes re
maining in the half, but a 15-yard^ per
sonal foul penalty pushed them back to
their own 16. Two plays later, the
Ducks were called for a false start, and
couldn’t gain a first down, forcing a
punt from their own end zone.
Oregon State took possession with
great field position at the Oregon 38,
and needed just three plays before scor
ing the go-ahead touchdown with 28
seconds left in the half.
"I told (the Ducks) at half
time that we'd made
enough mistakes to last a
lifetime"
Mike Bellotti
Oregon head coach
“To me, that was a big momentum
changer,” Oregon State head coach
Dennis Erickson said. “It might have
been the biggest in the whole game.”
Penalties weren’t Oregon’s only con
cerns. Oregon State quarterback
Derek Anderson and tailback Steven
Jackson, both sophomores, had big
games for the Beavers. Anderson com
pleted 21-of-37 attempts for 370 yards
and four touchdowns, while Jackson
became OSU’s single-season rushing
leader by piling up 153 yards and
three total touchdowns.
Contact the senior sports reporter
at adamjude@dailyemerald.com.
Loss tastes like rancid sour cream on moldy bread
Peter
Hockaday
Two minutes for
crosschecking
c
CORVALLIS — Jason Fife said the
Civil War “left a bad taste in my mouth.”
He’s right. This game was disgusting, a
taste on par with the sour cream that’s
been sitting in the back of the fridge for
a year. Or cold medicine. Or moldy
french bread.
This game was disgusting.
The first half was marred by penalties
that the Ducks attributed to “emotion,”
1
but were really just sloppy, stupid mis
takes. The second half was filled with the
offensive ineptness that has become Ore
gon’s calling card late in this now-dis
gusting season.
There were flashes of brilliance, espe
cially from seniors Keenan Howry and
Allan Amundson, for whom it was a bit
tersweet day.
But in general, Oregon just played aw
ful. Beaver quarterback Derek Anderson
didn’t have to be on his game to have a
big day. Ditto to running back Steven
Jackson, but he was on his game anyway
and had a big day.
After a loss like that, you just want to
remember better times, right? Back to
when Oregon was 6-0, headed back to
Tostitos-land in everybody’s minds,
ranked in the top 10 as usual. Those
were the days, right?
Wrong. Those good times make the
bad times seem even worse. The expec
tations reached epic heights for this Ore
gon squad, building into an unstable
structure that the Ducks eventually fell
off, landing on the ground with a “thud”
Saturday night in the second half.
You go back to Sept. 7. It’s early in the
Turn to Hockaday, page 10
Defense keys men to opening win
The UO merfc basketball squad
opens the year with a97-52victory
Men’s basketball
Peter Hockaday
Sports Editor
In the first of 29 games the Ducks will
play this season in their defense of the
men’s basketball Pacific-10 Conference
title, they defined the one word from
this sentence that will help them most
to that goal.
Defense.
With Oregon’s offense sputtering ear
ly Sunday night — something head
coach Ernie Kent said he expected be
cause he kept his team’s running to a
minimum in practice this week, antici
pating back-to-back games — the Ducks
turned to their defense. That defense al
lowed Oregon to pull away and the
Ducks beat Grambling State, 97-52, in
their first game of the John Thompson
Challenge at McArthur Court.
“If we can get teams to miss shots, that
keys the kind of game we want to play,”
Kent said.
Oregon’s James Davis hit seven three
pointers, one shy of the school record. He
and Luke Ridnour led Oregon’s offensive
effort with 21 points each, while Ridnour
added nine assists and five steals.
“It’s an up-and-down game,” Davis said.
“Everybody’s going to have their days.”
Kent said he would have given the ball
to Davis—whose last three-pointer came
with 14:20 left in the game — more had
he known he was so close to the record.
“You should have told me that,” Kent
said, grinning, to reporters in the media
room after the game. “If we had known
that, and if it had been within our offen
sive system, we would have given him
an opportunity.”
Oregon tied a school record with 17
steals against the Tigers, who will play in
the Challenge’s consolation game at 5
p.m., while the Ducks moved to the
championship game to play California
State Northridge at 7:30 p.m.
“It’s good to get our season going,”
Davis said. “It felt good to get our rhythm
and our confidence up.”
Oregon didn’t hit its rhythm until
midway through the first half Sunday
night, when the Ducks’ defense keyed
the team to a 16-2 run that ended with
Oregon leading 32-15. The Tigers scored
on back-to-back possessions only twice
in the first half.
It wasn’t until the second half that the
Ducks went on an offensive run like the
ones that they showed in two preseason
blowouts, but when it came, the Oregon
fans loved it. The Ducks scored fast-break
buckets on five consecutive possessions
early in the second half.
Turn to Men's, page 9
Jeremy Forrest Emerald
James Davis hit seven three-pointers, one short of the school record.