Sports Editor
Peter Hockaday
peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com
Thursday, April 3,2003
—-Oregon Daily Emerald
Sports
Best bet
NBA: L.A. Lakers at Dallas
6:30 p.m., TNT
Adam Amato Emerald
Is there life
without Lukes?
Afterayear when the Ducks’
expectations fell short, Oregon faces
an unknown future as its stars
consider entering the 2003 NBA Draft
Men’s basketball
Peter Hockaday
Sports Editor
Ernie Kent will be at the Final Four this
weekend in New Orleans. Kent sits on the
board of directors for the National Associa
tion of Basketball Coaches, which holds its
annual meetings at the Final Four.
Luke Ridnour and Luke Jackson won’t
be there with Kent. The Oregon team won’t
be there.
The Ducks came one step short of the Fi
nal Four last season. This year, Oregon
came four very large steps away, and the
Ducks were left to wonder how that walk
through The Dance could have turned out.
“We were a good enough team to win
some games in the (NCAA) tournament,
and we didn’t get it done,” Kent said.
The list of accomplishments for Oregon
this year was long. The Ducks beat Kansas
in the preseason. They won the Pacific-10
Conference Tournament. Ridnour was
named Pac-10 Player of the Year, and Jack
son was named to the All Pac-10 Team.
But this year’s Oregon team will be re
membered more for its 60-58 first-round
NCAA Tournament loss to Utah on March
21. And that will fuel next year’s fire.
“It should motivate them,” Kent said.
“Finishing fifth (in the Pac-10) should mo
tivate them, even though we won the Pac
10 Tournament. Winning the Pac-10 Tour
nament told me we were one of the best
teams in the Pac-10.”
So what about next year? So far, Kent
has two plans. Plan “A” assumes juniors
Ridnour and Jackson, who are both consid
ering making the leap to the NBA, will re
turn next year.
Plan “B” assumes they won’t.
“If you get to plan ‘B,’ you execute plan
‘B,’” Kent said. “For right now, we get ready
like they’re coming back.”
Ridnour and Jackson were in Mexico un
til recently, and Kent said it could be “a
month to two months” before they make
their decisions on whether or not to de
clare for the NBA Draft. The deadline for
underclassmen to declare is May 11.
So for now, Kent can only look at the
players he knows are coming back. And af
ter a tough year, he thinks those players
will come back with a hunger to win.
“We have the makings of a really good
team, with the opportunity to come back
and do it again next year, if everybody re
turns and everybody grows the way they
should grow this spring and summer,”
Kent said.
Kent wants Ian Grosswhite and Matt
Short to grow in size. He wants Adam Zahn
and Jordan Kent, who both redshirted this
season, to improve their shooting abilities.
He wants Andre Joseph and James Davis to
grow as leaders. And he wants all that to
help the Ducks grow into more NCAA
Tournament wins.
“The growth this year, the Pac-10 Tour
nament Championship, making it back to
the NCAA Tournament, was all positive
growth for this team,” Kent said.
Then there’s the recruits, the seeds who
will be planted into the Oregon program
when they arrive on campus next fall. Seat
tle’s Aaron Brooks is the most touted
prospect for the Ducks. Brooks scored 18
points in Monday’s EA Sports Roundball
Classic. Kent said he’s also excited about
the additions of recruits Ray Schafer and
Mitch Platt, both post players.
“You’ve got three players, that’s a pretty
strong recruiting class coming in the door,”
Kent said. “On paper, this is a big team, a
very deep team.”
When Kent landed Brooks, it was a di
rect result of his experience coaching the
USA Basketball Junior World Champi
onships Team, a team that Brooks played
for. After his trip to New Orleans, Kent will
hit the recruiting trail again, then hit his
most important recruiting pool: The 2003
Junior World Basketball Championships in
Malaysia, July 10-20.
“(My focus) is shifting to USA Basketball
and recruiting,” Kent said.
Kent has been able to land top recruiting
classes in recent years, and he says that
when players like Jackson and Ridnour
consider leaving early, it’s only a reflection
of how high the Oregon program has risen.
Turn to Basketball, page 12
L
Lorenzo in top 3
after first day of
first ‘03 decathlon
The star notches two personal bests on his way to a
third-place finish at the Texas Relays in Austin, Texas
Track and field
Peter Hockaday
Sports Editor
Santiago Lorenzo has been there before, done that before.
But this time, it’s so very different.
In his first full decathlon since sitting out the 2002 season
with a quadricep injury, Lorenzo was third overall after the first
day of the decathlon at the Texas Relays in Austin, Texas, with
some of his best events still to come today. Lorenzo won the
Texas Relays decathlon in 2001 on his way to the NCAA title in
the multi-event competition.
Turn to Track, page 13
Rollercoaster ends for wrestlers
The Duck wrestling squad
finishes the season in the top half
of the Pac-10, and earns an 8-11
overall dual meet record
Wrestling'
Mindi Rice
Sports Reporter
It’s finally slowed down.
The Oregon wrestling squad rode a
rollercoaster this season, and with the
NCAA Championships two weeks
past, the Ducks now have time to set
tle back into the offseason.
After losing one of the team’s top
wrestlers to injury in the team’s first
tournament, then almost upsetting
the No. 3 team in the country two
months later, the Ducks showed
Turn to Wrestling, page 14
Adam Amato Emerald
Shane Webster (top) was the only Duck to finish as an All-American at the national tournament.