FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
A5
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • TUEsday, MarcH 23, 2021
NBA
Lakers great, Elgin
Baylor, dies at 86
Elgin Baylor, the Lakers’
11-time NBA All-Star who
soared through the 1960s
with a high-scoring style
of basketball that became
the model for the modern
player, died Monday. He
was 86.
The Lakers announced
that Baylor died of natu-
ral causes in Los Angeles
with his wife, Elaine, and
daughter Krystal by his
side.
With a silky-smooth
jumper and fluid athleti-
cism, Baylor played a ma-
jor role in revolutionizing
basketball from a ground-
bound sport into an aerial
show. He spent parts of 14
seasons with the Lakers
in Minneapolis and Los
Angeles during his Hall of
Fame career, teaming with
Jerry West throughout
the ’60s in
one of the
most po-
tent tan-
dems in
basketball
history.
Baylor’s Baylor
second
career as a personnel ex-
ecutive with the woebe-
gone Los Angeles Clippers
was much less successful.
He worked for the Clip-
pers from 1986 until 2008,
when he left the team
with acrimony and an un-
successful lawsuit against
owner Donald Sterling
and the NBA, alleging age
and race discrimination.
The 6-foot-5 Baylor
played in an era before
significant television cov-
erage of basketball, and
little of his play was ever
captured on film. His spec-
tacular style is best re-
membered by those who
saw it in person — includ-
ing West, who once called
him “one of the most spec-
tacular shooters the world
has ever seen.”
Baylor had an uncanny
ability to hang in mid-air
indefinitely, inventing
shots along the way with
his head bobbing. Years
before Julius Erving and
Michael Jordan became
international superstars
with their similarly acro-
batic games, Baylor cre-
ated the blueprint for the
modern superstar.
Baylor soared above
most of his contempo-
raries, but never won a
championship or led the
NBA in scoring largely
because he played at the
same time as centers Bill
Russell, who won all the
rings, and Wilt Chamber-
lain, who claimed all the
scoring titles. Knee inju-
ries hampered much of
the second half of Baylor’s
career, although he re-
mained a regular All-Star.
West and Baylor were
the first pair in the long
tradition of dynamic duos
with the Lakers, followed
by Magic Johnson and Ka-
reem Abdul-Jabbar in the
1980s before Kobe Bryant
and Shaquille O’Neal won
three more titles in the
2000s.
But Baylor’s Lakers lost
six times in the NBA Finals
to the Boston Celtics and
another time to the New
York Knicks. Los Angeles
won the 1971-72 title,
but only after Baylor re-
tired nine games into the
season.
Baylor arrived in the
NBA in 1958 as the No. 1
draft pick out of Seattle
University. He immedi-
ately set new superlatives
for individual scoring, with
a 55-point game in his
Rookie-of-the-Year season
before scoring 64 on Nov.
8, 1959 — then the NBA
single-game record, and
the Lakers record for 45
years until Bryant broke it.
—Associated Press
bendbulletin.com/sports
MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Oregon soars past Iowa into Sweet 16
BY JOHN MARSHALL
AP Basketball Writer
INDIANAPOLIS — Ore-
gon wove its way through a
pandemic-altered season filled
with injuries, pauses and un-
certainty to win a conference
title.
When another kink surfaced
in the NCAA Tournament,
the resilient, adaptable Ducks
shook it off and soared.
Off to another Sweet 16.
Chris Duarte scored 23
points and Oregon showed no
signs of rust after a long layoff,
beating No. 2 seed Iowa 95-80
on Monday to reach the Sweet
16 for the fourth time in the
past five NCAA Tournaments.
“The guys fought through
it, they stayed together,” Ore-
gon coach Dana Altman said.
“I’m proud of the way they re-
sponded.”
The seventh-seeded Ducks
(21-6) were put in an unprec-
edented spot, advancing to the
West Region’s second round
without playing a game. Vir-
ginia Commonwealth’s mul-
tiple positive COVID-19 tests
took care of that, leaving Or-
egon with a nine-day break
since losing in the Pac-12
Tournament title game.
Oregon’s offense hummed
like it was fresh off the line
once the ball went up, kicking
off the NCAA Tournament’s
first Monday of second-round
games with a masterpiece.
The Ducks flowed on the
floor and glowed on the score-
sheet, shooting 56% and hit-
ting 11 3-pointers. LJ Figueroa
hit five 3s while scoring 21
points and Will Richardson
added 19 points in an offensive
domination.
Oregon moves on to face ei-
ther Kansas or Southern Cal in
the Sweet 16.
See Sweet 16 / A7
Oregon forward Eugene Omoruyi (2) shoots against Iowa Monday during the second round of the NCAA
tournament at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Paul Sancya/AP
PREP BOYS SOCCER
Storm continues strong short
season with dominating win
Summit is happy to be
competing again, even if it
must face the same teams
multiple times
S
BY MARK MORICAL
The Bulletin
ure, Summit would like to play for a
league and state title this year.
But the Storm boys soccer team is
just happy to be playing at this point.
“Yes, they would like a more tradi-
tional season, where they’re playing for
a league title,” said Summit coach Ron
Kidder. “But they just want to play, so
I’m grateful they have the opportunity
to play.”
The Storm made the most of that op-
portunity Monday evening in a dominat-
ing 9-1 victory over Bend High at 15th
Street Field.
Junior Alex Grignon and sophomore
Grayson Barker led Summit with two
goals apiece as the Storm (4-1 overall)
cruised to a 4-0 lead by halftime.
Summit also got goals from Nathaniel
Deperro, Max Anders, Bowen Teuber,
Aiden MacLennan and Kaden Barker.
“That’s been a big goal of ours this sea-
son, just scoring more,” Grignon said. “I
think that showed, scoring four in the
first half. We like to come out and put
our opponents on their back foot. Scor-
ing early and scoring fast really helps our
game.”
In a shortened schedule with re-
stricted travel and no postseason due to
COVID-19, Summit has three matches
remaining: one against Mountain View,
which they defeated 5-0 last Wednesday,
and two more against the Lava Bears.
See Soccer / A7
Dean Guernsey/Bulletin photo
Summit’s Kaden Barker (8) battles for the ball with Bend’s Nicholai Moroukian (16) and Carson Rider (5) during the boys soccer
match in Bend Monday.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL COMMENTARY
OSU climbs mountains on the way to the Sweet 16
BY JOHN CANZANO
The Oregonian
A men’s basketball team from
Oregon State, coached by a man
named Wayne Tinkle, advanced
to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA
Tournament on Sunday night.
The uninvited guests, picked
to finish dead last in the Pac-12
Conference, had some fun with
the whole thing. At the morn-
ing shoot around, in fact, one
OSU player got on the shoul-
ders of another at Hinkle Field-
house in Indianapolis and used
a tape measure to check the dis-
tance from the rim to the floor.
“10 feet” someone cried,
“just like Gill Coliseum.”
The Beavers eliminated No.
4-seed Oklahoma State, 80-70.
My wife thinks Ray Liotta should
play Tinkle in the movie version
of this magical basketball sea-
son. Liotta is 10 inches shorter
than the 6-foot-10 Tinkle, but
Hollywood will have to make it
work. Because what we’ve seen
over the last few weeks from the
Beavers goes down as one of the
most remarkable, impressive,
heartwarming journeys our state
has seen.
Nobody wants it to end ex-
cept a 101-year old nun.
Sister Jean has already had
her fun, though, hasn’t she?
She watched Loyola Chicago
knock out No. 1 seed Illinois
earlier on Sunday. That book-
makers immediately installed
Oregon State as a seven-point
underdog in their Sweet 16
matchup tells you where the
Beavers stand today.
Legendary OSU baseball
coach Pat Casey once told me
on the eve of winning a na-
tional championship, “I don’t
need all the best players. I just
need some of them.”
So how about the fight of
Ethan Thompson? And the
bounce of Jarod Lucas? And
center Roman Silva is 7-foot-
1-lunch-bucket good, isn’t he?
What I see when I look at Tin-
kle’s team on the floor is just
that — a true team. One that is
playing with unusual comfort
and confidence while the tour-
nament around them is crum-
bling amid the stakes.
See OSU / A7
Who’s going to stop
Oregon State? Who’s going
to tell the Beavers they
don’t belong today? Those
have become questions
to ask. OSU has devoured
those kinds of doubts in
the last two weeks.
— John Canzano