Oregon Daily Emerald
Monday, December 6, 2004
“I’ve been watching Dikembe Mntombo. ”
Aaron Brooks, Oregon’s 6-foot point guard, on his ability to block shots
■ In my opinion
._..
BRIAN SMITH
LEFTY SPECIALIST
Oregon
women rely
on clutch,
not crutch
PORTLAND — The Ducks are 5-0.
Deja vu, anyone?
Everyone grab a piece of wood because the
Oregon women’s basketball team doesn’t need a
repeat of last year.
Desks. Chairs. The Ttojan Horse. (Random,
I know.)
Anything made from trees.
Do you remember what happened last year?
Hey kiddies, time for a crash course in history.
Last year: 5-0 marked the beginning of the end
to the 2003-04 season. Ranked No. 20 in the na
tion, the Ducks lost do-everything player Cathrine
Kraayeveld for the season with a knee injury dur
ing a practice at the Morse Event Center at North
west Christian College. Oregon went 9-15 the rest
of the year, 6-12 in the Pacific-10 Conference.
This year: 5-0 marks...well, who knows?
Unfortunately, this soothsayer knows nothing
(in advance) nor wants to predict anything (too
early in the season), but what I can say is I saw a
team on Saturday.
Not just five players on the court wearing the
same uniform, but a true team.
The Ducks’ 64-40 victory Saturday at the Pape
Jam was a great example of that.
It’s not a surprise that Kraayeveld is the best
player on the team. Coaches know that. Players
know that. My friend’s brother’s grandmother’s
aunt’s mailman knows that.
On Saturday, however, I saw an Oregon
team that doesn’t need to use Kraayeveld as a
crutch. The Ducks have too many good
players to let that happen.
There’s that point guard, Corrie Mizusawa is
it? Thirty-nine assists and only nine turnovers for
a 4.3 assist-to-tumover ratio?
That’s pretty good.
How about that Andrea Bills? Ten points and
six boards per game?
Not bad.
Eleanor Haring? TWenty-one points against Mi
ami last week on 10 of 11 shooting? Thirteen
points on 6 of 7 shooting Saturday, including six
in a row to increase the lead and capture the mo
mentum at the end of the first half?
Sounds pretty clutch to me.
Speaking of clutch, how ‘bout Chelsea
Wagner? Top five in three-pointers made
in the conference, adding five more against
the Colonials?
Basically, Oregon has four legitimate scorers in
its starting lineup, and any one of them is capable
of buoying the team in case Kraayeveld isn’t
shooting lights out.
“One of the things that I am very proud about
our team is that they are a real team,” Oregon
head coach Bev Smith said. “Defensively, to be
that good you have to play as a team. ”
Oh yeah, defense. As a team.
“(Defense) is something we focus on,” Smith
said, “and we know that is our foundation.”
Oregon held George Washington to 16.1
percent shooting in the second half. For the game,
the Colonials shot 24.6 percent.
Not too shabby, eh?
The Colonials’ 40 points was their lowest total
since 1988, and the fewest points Oregon has
allowed since holding Boise State to 29 in 2001.
SMITH, page 10A
Danielle Hickey | Photo editor
Oregon point guard Aaron Brooks goes up for a block against Vanderbilt's Mario
Moore in the Pape Jam on Saturday. Brooks totaled 11 points and two assists.
Home away
from home
After defeating Vanderbilt 75-65 Saturday, the Ducte
move to 7-0 in the annual Pape Jam held in Portland
BY JON ROETMAN
SENIOR SPORTS REPORTER
PORTLAND — A stellar
defensive effort propelled the
Oregon men’s basketball team to a
75-65 win against Vanderbilt dur
ing the seventh annual Pape Jam at
the Rose Garden on Saturday.
The Ducks (4-0 overall) pres
sured Commodore shooters
relentlessly, forcing them to live
and die with perimeter shots.
Fortunately for Oregon, there
wasn’t much life in the Vanderbilt
offense as the Commodores
shot 39 percent from the floor,
including 21 percent from three
point range.
Saturday’s game marked the
fourth consecutive contest in
which Oregon held an opponent
to less than 40 percent shooting.
Vanderbilt (4-3), which was
shooting 45 percent from three
point range before Saturday,
connected on only 5 of 24 from
behind the arc.
“We need to stop relying on
our three-point shooting,”
Commodore center Dawid
Przybyszewski said. “It was not
as effective today as usual. We
needed to get the ball inside more
and look for open shots.”
At 7-foot-2, Przybyszewski is
considered one of the best
outside-shooting big men in the
country. However, Oregon limited
the senior to six points in 22
minutes after he got into early
foul trouble.
With all of the solid defensive
plays Oregon made, one stood
out from the rest. With his team
leading 7-4 early in the first half,
Vanderbilt junior guard Mario
Moore picked up a loose ball and
appeared to be on his way to a
layin. Oregon point guard Aaron
Brooks never stopped hustling,
PAPE JAM, page 9A
Brooks leads Oregon s defensive effort
The sophomores 'energy plays' helped the Ducks
pull away from Vanderbilt in Saturday's victory
BY ALEX TAM
DAILY EMERALD FREELANCE REPORTER
PORTLAND — As Oregon
guard Aaron Brooks hustled back
on defense to swat away Vander
bilt guard Mario Moore’s layup
early in the first half of Saturday’s
Pape Jam, it stirred up a bitter
sweet memory for fellow Oregon
guard Jordan Kent.
Sitting on the bench, Kent was
reminded of when his teammate
had run the same defense on him
at a recent practice.
“I picked the ball up at
half court and decided to not go
up that hard at all,” Kent said
about the practice. “(Brooks)
read it perfectly in my right
hand and basically swatted it out
of bounds.”
As long as Brooks can apply
his skills to opposing teams’ play
ers, Kent said getting blocked by
his teammate is no big deal.
“When he’s on my team, then
shoot, I don’t care at all,” Kent
said. “I don’t mind him doing
that to me in practice as long as
he does it in games.”
That type of defensive effort by
the Ducks helped them pull away
from Vanderbilt in the second
half en route to a 75-65 victory at
the Rose Garden.
Brooks had two blocks in the
game, both served on attempted
layups by Moore. Kent said those
kind of “energy plays” are need
ed when a game — or a team —
gets sluggish, the way the Ducks
had been after committing 14
first-half turnovers.
“Once we get the energy going
and the crowd going and start run
ning up and down the floor, plays
like that are huge,” Kent said.
Vanderbilt head coach Kevin
Stallings said Moore was proba
bly bothered by the blocks, but
needs to forget about those kinds
of plays in future games.
“If you’ve never had your
shot blocked, then you haven’t
played college basketball,"
Stallings said. “There wasn’t
a guy on that court, I don’t
think, who has never had
their shot blocked, so he just
has to come back and know
he’s going up against those kind
MEN'S, page 9A
■ Women's basketball
Ducks breeze by George Washington, 64-40
Oregon used a late run to defeat the Colonials
at the annual Pape Jam at Portland's Rose Garden
BY STEPHEN MILLER
SPORTS REPORTER
PORTLAND — Oregon
received another lights-out
performance from sophomore
Eleanor Haring while holding
George Washington to its lowest
point total of the season.
Haring, who was named the
game's most valuable player,
scored 13 points and sank 6 of 7
from the field in Oregon's 64-40
Pape Jam victory at the Rose Gar
den. The soft-shooting forward
has made 18 of her last 20 shots
through three games.
The Ducks held the Colonials to
the lowest point total recorded by
a Pape Jam opponent, remaining
undefeated (7-0) at the event.
With the win, Oregon began its
second consecutive season with a
5-0 record.
“I think slowly, in the first 20
minutes, we got under their skin
a little bit,” Oregon head coach
Bev Smith said. “Then in the
second half, they really ran into
a wall, both in terms of our
defense just not giving in and
their fatigue piling up.”
Oregon strung together a 17-1
scoring run in the final seven
minutes of the game.
“Basically, we just settled down
a bit with our offense and our
defense execution (in the second
half),” Haring said. “That gave us
a chance to score.”
George Washington (3-2)
witnessed its “East Coast” offense
struggle due to Oregon's presence
inside. Senior forward Anna
Montanana scored a game-high 19
points on 7 of 19 shooting. She
also committed eight turnovers
in 37 minutes.
“It was kind of like we could
never catch up to them
(Oregon),” Montanana said. “I
think we didn't have our best
offensive game. We wanted to
get the ball inside, but we didn't
have a good selection of shoots. ”
Oregon junior shooting guard
Chelsea Wagner collected a
team-high 15 points as she
finished 5 of 11 behind the arc.
Senior Andrea Bills contributed
heavily to Oregon's defense in the
paint. The 6-foot-3 center also
posted 14 points (7 of 10) and nine
rebounds. Bills has recorded
double figures in points in her last
four contests.
Center Jessica Simmonds, who
is averaging a double-double this
season, struggled for the
Colonials as she shot 1 of 11 from
the floor, totaling three points,
and snatched six rebounds.
“(The Ducks) have the size,
and they have the ability to
dismantle people defensively,”
George Washington head coach
Joe McKeown said. “We just
couldn't score, that was the
biggest thing.”
The Colonials shot 16.1 percent
in the second half and 24.6 for the
game. Other than Montanana, no
George Washington player
reached double-figures in points.
WOMEN'S, page 8A