Sports Editor
Peter Hockaday
peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com
Monday, March 31,2003
Oregon Daily Emerald
Sports
Best bet
MLB: NY Yankees at Toronto
4p.mv ESPN2
One Luke
...or two?
Only they
know now
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Like a town
sandbagging against a flood, Oregon is
bracing for Luke
Ridnour’s depar
ture to the NBA.
This is a trust
fall, and we’re
not going to
catch Rid on his
way to the hard
floor of the pros.
Unless he wants
to be caught, in
which case we’ll
not only catch
him, we’ll throw
rose petals in his
every footstep
and feed him grapes until he’s full and
all that.
But what about the other square in
“Luke Squared”?
What about Luke Jackson?
After Oregon’s loss to Utah in the
first round of the NCAA Tournament,
Jackson said, “For me personally, I just
need to look at where I’m at and make
a decision. I feel like I had a good year.”
With sure-fire first-rounder Ridnour,
we plead “please don’t go.” With Jack
son, we wonder “what the what?”
Luke Ridnour could not go to the
NBA. Luke Jackson should not go to
the NBA.
We present evidence.
Last year, 42 underclassmen and
high schoolers declared themselves
eligible for the NBA Draft. Exactly half
didn’t get drafted. Most of those were
from schools like Shelton State or
Brown Mackie JG (yes, those are ac
tual schools, and yes, their basketball
players were stupid enough to think
they’d be drafted).
But then there’s the case of Adam
Turn to Hockaday, page 14
Peter
Hockaday
Two minutes for
crosschecking
Men exit Madness
early to Utah
The Ducks lose in the first round of
the NCAA Tournament, ending their
season at the hands of the Utes
Men’s basketball
Adam Jude
Senior Sports Reporter
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In the end, the bot
tom line is all that matters.
The shots didn’t fall. Oregon lost. Season over.
That’s basketball, as they say. And it stings.
James Davis, the Pacific-10 Conference’s top
three-point shooter, missed two potential
game-winning shots in the final five seconds as
the Ducks were knocked out of the NCAA Tour
nament in the first round with a 60-58 loss to
Utah on March 21.
“It’s real tough knowing how hard you
worked to get here, and all of a sudden it’s
over,” said Oregon point guard Luke Ridnour,
who played what many speculate will be his fi
nal game in an Oregon uniform.
As they sat in the locker room of the Gaylord
Entertainment Center, Ridnour and Davis, two
of the last Ducks to leave, sat next to each oth
er, staring blankly at the floor, hands shadowing
their teary eyes.
In the final seconds of the Midwest Region
matchup between the No. 8 seed Ducks (23-10)
and the ninth-seeded Utes (25-7), Ridnour, as
has been the case throughout the season, was
given the ball in the waning moments of the
game. He drove, then kicked to an open Davis.
“That first one I thought for sure was going
in,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said of
Davis’ shot.
It didn’t. The rebound bounced back out to
Davis, who took a deeper attempt with two Utes
running at him. It clanked off the rim, too, and
the horn sounded immediately after.
“I just didn’t hit the shots,” Davis said. “We
gave ourselves a good opportunity to win, the
shots just didn’t fall.
“It breaks my heart, man, especially the way
we lost. I can’t explain it.”
Ridnour couldn’t explain it either. The Pacific
10 Conference Player of the Year didn’t score his
first field goal until the 13:08 mark of the second
half; he finished with 13 points on 3-of-13 shoot
ing — no jump shots — with five assists, five re
bounds and five turnovers in 39 minutes.
“(Utah) did a good job of making him go to
his left, but he was missing shots he normally
hits,” Kent said. “I would say half of (Ridnour’s
struggles) was their defense, and half was him
out a rhythm a little.”
Jt
David Stephenson Lexington Herald-Leader (KRT)
Robert Johnson (top) and the Ducks couldn't handle the smothering defense of Tim Drisdom and Utah.
Johnson, a senior, scored nine points and added five rebounds in his final game in an Oregon uniform.
Davis was 2-for-12 from the field. Both Rid
nour and Davis took the blame for the loss,
though their teammates said that’s hardly fair. As
a team, Oregon shot 34.5 percent (19-of-55); the
Utes were even worse at 29.5 percent (18-of-61).
“You can’t fault one person,” said junior for
ward Luke Jackson, who paced the Ducks with
14 points. “This is a team loss.”
Even without Britton Johnsen, their best
player who was ruled out of the tournament
because of mononucleosis, the Utes built a
51-42 lead with 9:28 left. But three Utes
fouled out in the final 10 minutes, and the
Ducks went on a 12-2 run to take a one-point
lead after a pair of Ridnour free throws with
5:41 remaining.
With the game tied 58-58, Utah opted to hold
the ball with 46 seconds left. With three ticks
left on the shot clock (14 seconds on the game
clock) Utah’s Nick Jacobson missed a three
pointer, but was fouled by Ridnour on the shot.
Turn to Men's, page 14
Mark McCambridge Emerald
Kristen O'Neill and Was ungton fell to UWGB in the first round.
Four teams shine in Eugene’s
segment of women’s tourney
LSU comes away unscathed
at the McArthur Court sub
regional to advance to the third
round of the NCAA Tournament
Women’s basketball
Hank Hager
Sports Reporter
The LSU women’s basketball team
came away from the Eugene sub-region
al to advance to the third round of the
NCAA Tournament.
But not before the Lady Tigers came ex
cruciatingly close to being upset by
eighth-seeded Wisconsin-Green Bay.
LSU won the second-round game, held
at McArthur Court on Monday, 80-69, but
led by as little as five with under three
minutes left to play.
“We were very close to shocking the
NCAA world, very close,” UWGB head
coach Kevin Borseth said. “This year, I
knew the players we had were winners.
They just don’t give up.”
LSU, the top seed in the West region
and ranked third in the nation, was led of
fensively by Doneeka Hodges, who had 20
points on the strength of 4-of-6 shooting
from beyond the three-point line. As a
team, the Lady Tigers shot an astounding
63.3 percent from the field.
All of that after starting point guard
Temeka Johnson left the game with just
less than 13 minutes left, after receiving
an errant elbow from UWGB center
Chandra Johnson.
“Any time you lose a player of that cal
iber, someone else has to step up,”
Hodges said. “We didn’t really have to
say anything; we just knew we had to
keep playing.”
Down 71-62 with three minutes left,
UWGB’s Johnson pulled the Phoenix clos
er with a tip-in. She was fouled on the play
by Seimone Augustus, and sank her only
free throw to pinch the score to five.
The Phoenix got within six, 73-67, min
utes later, but Hodges hit a three with 57
seconds left, then proceeded to sink four
straight free throws to ice the game.
Johnson had a momentous game for
the Phoenix in her final outing for UWGB.
She scored a career-high 29 points and
grabbed five rebounds.
“It was really fun to see Chandra come
full-circle and end her career with a great
tourney against some real good teams.”
With the win, LSU advanced to the third
round against Louisiana Tech, played Sun
day at Maples Pavilion in Stanford, Calif.
No. 8 UWGB 78,
No. 9 Washington 65
The Phoenix started the tournament in
style, defeating the only Pacific-10 Confer
ence representative in the Eugene bracket.
Tiffany Mor led UWGB with 15 points,
but as a team, the Phoenix were balanced
Turn to Women's, page 14