University of Oregon
UCLA
Ducks Take Must-Win Mentality To UCLA
02/08/17 | Men's Basketball, @GoDucksMoseley
Given the way the schedule sets up around the Pac-12, the Oregon men believe they need to win out to win the conference, beginning at UCLA on Thursday (7 p.m., ESPN).
With a younger team, Oregon men's basketball coach Dana Altman might be more reticent about his thoughts on the race for the Pac-12 regular-season championship.
But the Ducks feature a seven-man rotation that includes two seniors and three juniors. They kept their heads down and their minds focused through a school-record 17-game win streak earlier this season. And they themselves recognize the realities of the conference race.
On Thursday, No. 5 Oregon (21-3, 10-1 Pac-12) kicks off a seven-game sprint to the finish at No. 10 UCLA (7 p.m., ESPN). After beating Arizona this past weekend and then facing the Bruins, the Ducks will play at the Pac-12's other 20-win team, USC, on Saturday. Then they return home to face two teams fighting for NCAA Tournament contention, Utah and Colorado, before heading back out on a three-game road trip to end the regular season.
The Wildcats, meanwhile, boast the same record as the Ducks, both overall and in the Pac-12. But Arizona has a markedly different final four weeks, playing four of seven at home and playing its three remaining road games at teams in the bottom half of the conference standings.
No need for Altman to mince words, then. For Oregon, the path to the Pac-12 title is clear.
"If we have any thought of winning the league, we're probably going to have to win out," Altman said Tuesday, reiterating a point he first made after Saturday's shocking blowout of then-No. 5 Arizona. "I don't want our guys looking ahead; obviously it's one game at a time. But we're going to have to play really well because of the way the schedule shifts."
Balancing big-picture goals with one-game-at-a-time focus is a challenge year in and year out. Altman's veteran Ducks have earned the right to air both in public, in their coach's mind. Now, of course, they've got to go about proving on the court that they're still deserving.
Oregon knocked off then-No. 2 UCLA in Matthew Knight Arena on Dec. 28, winning 89-87 on a Dillon Brooks three-pointer in the final second. To beat the Bruins again, the Ducks can't be worried about Saturday's game at USC, or the chance to avenge their loss to Colorado next week, or the always confounding road trip to the Bay Area at the end of the month.
"I feel like, as a team, we think we can do anything," UO senior Chris Boucher said. "We just stay focused. Every game is important. We know we might have the hardest schedule, but every game counts. We know that, for us, we've got to win every one, and we've got to stay focused."
The Ducks are coming off a transcendent shooting performance against the Wildcats, in which they made an arena-record 16 three-pointers – and did so on just 21 attempts, before finishing 16-of-25. But they also held Arizona to .426 shooting, and edged them on the boards, 25-23.
"Against Arizona we hit a lot of shots, and that was great," senior Dylan Ennis said. "But what won it for us was defense. And that's what it's gonna have to be against UCLA. They're a team that can get buckets and get going and get a lot of confidence."
According to the analytics website kenpom.com, UCLA (21-3, 8-3) has the most efficient offense in the country. The Ducks pulled out a shootout with the Bruins at home in December, but they'd like to do a better job of setting the tone Thursday.
"They shoot a better percentage from the field; they shoot a better percentage from three," Altman said. "On paper, we're a better defensive team. So we would hope it would tilt that way a little bit. …
"The shots falling (like they did against Arizona), we can't probably control as much as we can the communication we had defensively, our effort on the boards, the balance we played with. Those are things we have a little more control over."
Given UCLA's offensive firepower, the Bruins provide ample reason for the Ducks to be solely focused on Thursday's matchup, rather than how it could factor into the conference race. If that's not enough, Ennis said, Oregon is also motivated to prove that last week's win over Arizona wasn't the team's high-water mark for the season.
"It's still February," Ennis said. "We still have March, and hopefully a little bit of April to play. If this is our best, I wouldn't be happy about that. I want to get better every day, and I'm sure everybody else does too."
