Oregon daily emerald., January 12, 2005, Image 5

Oregon Daily Emerald
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
“Every Pac-10 school is like that. Stanford’s like
that, and at Arizona State there’s nobody in the
crowd except the drank baseball players. ”
Ian Crosswhite, Oregon basketball player, on dealing with adverse crowd conditions
■ In my opinion
JON ROETMAN
ROUGHING THE PASSER
Moss' antics
overshadow
Hasselbeck's
humbleness
While there were several upsets and spec
tacular plays during the wild-card round of the
NFL playoffs last weekend, more attention
was paid to Randy Moss and his posterior
than anything else.
For those who haven’t seen it, the con
troversial Minnesota wide receiver pre
tended to moon the Green Bay crowd after
catching a game-clinching touchdown pass
against the Packers.
While 1 personally find nothing wrong with
what Moss did, plenty of people found the
mock butt-cheek exposure appalling. The re
action caused by Moss’ hilarious celebration
took away from the Vikings’ 31-17 defeat of
the Packers and also overshadowed the week
end’s other great accomplishments — the
most unfortunate oversight being the birth of
a leader in Seattle.
With “look-at-me” athletes like Moss
bringing negative attention to their teams
seemingly every week, Seahawk quarter
back Matt Hasselbeck moved in a different
direction Saturday after Seattle’s season
ending loss to St. Louis.
The Seahawks’ signal caller has every right
to be a bitter man. He’s had to endure impa
tient fans, underachieving receivers and being
relegated to backup duty throughout his four
seasons in Seattle. Regardless, he led the Sea
hawks to their second-consecutive playoff
berth this season. ♦
With the Seahawks playing in only the
fourth home postseason game in franchise
history, Seahawk receivers continued to drop
passes against the Rams. Regardless, Hassel
beck managed to persevere, throwing for a
team-playoff-record 341 yards and a pair of
touchdowns.
Despite the team’s struggles, the Seahawks
had chance to win. With a little more than
two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter,
Seattle found itself down by seven and 64
yards away from the end zone. Hasselbeck
drove his team down the field with precision
passes and improvisational scrambling.
After 90 action-packed seconds, Seattle
reached the Rams’ 5-yard line and faced a
fourth-and-four. With Seattle’s season riding
on one play, Hasselbeck rolled to his left,
looked back to his right and fired a pass to the
Seahawks’ most sure-handed receiver, Bobby
Engram. When the pass hit Engram’s hands,
Qwest Field erupted as 70,000 fans thought
the Seahawks had managed to force overtime.
As Engram hit the ground and rolled, howev
er, the ball popped loose and Seattle’s playoff
run had come to an end on yet another drop.
When he realized the ball wasn’t caught,
Hasselbeck, who had fallen to his knees,
pounded the turf and let out a thunderous
grief-ridden scream. As he ran off the field, it
appeared he was in near tears.
During post-game interviews, the emotion
ally-drained Hasselbeck had every reason to
say terrible things about his teammates and
Seattle fans. But after all the boos he had
ROETMAN, page 6A
■ Men’s basketball
Ducks more than ready for Huskies
With memories of Washington
disrespect still lingering, Oregon
prepares for game in Seattle
BY CLAYTON JONES
SPORTS EDITOR
In football, Washington danced on Oregon’s
“O” at the end of the game three years ago.
In basketball, Washington guard Nate Robin
son dunked the basketball as time ran out on a
game in which the Huskies had already secured a
victory last season.
Oregon State may be the "official” rival of the
Ducks, but Washington has become a very
close second.
Duck forward Ian Crosswhite thinks that no
one on his team should have a problem get
ting up for Oregon’s Pacific-10 Conference
matchup on Thursday against the Huskies at
Bank of America Arena at Hec Edmundson
Pavilion in Seattle.
“It’s easy to get fired up for this one, because
they have all their fans,” Crosswhite said.
“Their students are right behind you, and with
all those people in there, it’s easy to get that fire
in your belly.”
The Australian native said Husky students will
be letting the Ducks know exactly where they are
all game.
“You can hear everything they are saying,”
Crosswhite said. “You just have to block that out
of your mind.”
But Crosswhite said that is something the
young Duck squad will face in every away game.
“Every Pac-10 school (is like that),” Crosswhite
said. “Stanford’s like that, and at Arizona State
there’s nobody in the crowd except the drunk
baseball players.”
Oregon point guard Aaron Brooks said that for
as crazy as the Huskies’ crowd gets, it’s nothing
compared to Mac Court.
“It’s a step down from Mac Court,” the Seattle
native said. “But it’s a nice atmosphere they got
going up there. You know it’s going to be rowdy. ”
The one thing that Oregon’s leading scorer
doesn’t want is for the game to be focused on
him — either for his hometown return or his
matchup with Robinson.
Lauren Wimer | Senior photographer
Seattle native Aaron Brooks, seen here against Oregon State, will return home for the first time to face No. 14
Washington on Thursday.
“It’s going to be a great game, and Nate’s a
good player,” Brooks said. “We’re trying to stay
away from a one-on-one battle with me and Nate
and focus on what we need to do as a team. ”
But for some of the freshmen, it will be their
first Pac-10 encounter away from the comforts
of McArthur Court, and their first meeting with
the Huskies.
“It’s going to be a new experience for me,”
Freshman Maarty Leunen said. “It’s going to
be a test to play a tough Washington team on
the road.”
Leunen said that not much has been men
tioned about what happened at the end of last
season’s matchup in Seattle.
“They haven’t told me too much,” the
Redmond native said. “I know it was a heated
battle and some stuff happened at the end.”
Fellow freshman Bryce Taylor knows the game
will be an intense one.
“We know it is extremely competitive, and
they will be talking a lot of junk to us," Taylor
said. “We got to play a tough style (of basketball)
and not back down.”
Crosswhite agrees that this will be a hard
fought game.
“They play physical and want to show they
have a lot of heart or whatever it is,” Crosswhite
said. "You’ve got to go down there and show that
you have that same kind of heart.”
claytonjones@dailyememld.com
■ Women's basketball
Stanford's Gandice Wiggins honored
The freshman standout
led the Cardinal to two
Pac-10 wins on the road
BY BRIAN SMITH
SPORTS REPORTER
Even though Stanford has one
of the most experienced teams in
the Pacific-10 Conference, the
Cardinal is receiving senior-like
play from a freshman.
Stanford guard Candice Wiggins
was named Pac-10 Player of the
Week for Jan. 6-10.
The 17-year-old San Diego na
tive averaged 29.5 points, 4.5 as
sists, 3.5 rebounds and 3.5 steals
in the Cardinal’s two road victories
against Arizona State and Arizona.
Wiggins scored a career-high 31
points and handed out six assists
in Stanford’s 68-57 victory over
No. 24 Arizona State. She led the
team in both categories and added
a career-high six steals.
In the 78-66 win over Arizona,
Wiggins again scored a team-high
28 points and went 8 of 8 from
the foul line. The win over the
Wildcats snapped Arizona’s
Danielle Hickey | Photo editor
Stanford freshman guard Candice Wiggins (11) leads the eighth-ranked Cardinal in
scoring with 17.2 points per game.
NCAA-leading 34-game home
winning streak.
Wiggins has led the Cardinal in
scoring 10 times this season and is
averaging 17.2 points and three
steals per game.
“I can’t really remember coach
ing anyone like her — being so
young and yet being so mature
and so old,” Stanford head coach
Tara VanDerveer said.
Oregon's Andrea Bills
in a more familiar role
With the return of senior Cathrine
Kraayeveld to the Duck lineup this
season, Andrea Bills has been able
to step out of the spotlight.
But while Bills is no longer the fo
cus, her numbers are nearly identi
cal to last season.
“With (Kraayeveld) in the lineup,
it frees her up from the biggest de
fensive responsibility (from the oth
er team),” Oregon head coach Bev
Smith said.
Bills is averaging 11.3 points per
game, which is nearly identical to
her 2003-04 average of 11.1 points
per game. Her 6.8 rebounds per
game is fifth-best in the Pac-10.
Surprising USC near top
of Pac-10 Conference
Nearly a third of the way into the
Pac-10 season, USC sports the sec
ond-best record in the conference,
one of the biggest surprises thus far.
“We don’t shoot the ball very
well, we turn the ball over, so I don’t
really know (why we play well),”
USC head coach Mark TVakh said.
“(However) we rebound the ball
well, and I think we play hard.”
The USC (4-1 Pac-10) team does
not feature a single top-20 scoring
player in the conference, but
through an even-distribution ap
proach, the Women of TVoy have the
fourth-highest scoring team average
(68.2) in the Pac-10.
briansmith@dailyemerald.com