Sat, Nov 22, 2008
SOUTHERN ARIZONA ENDODONTICS I NSURANCE PROCESSOR Education Yavapai College Teachers General Prestige Maintenance USA Area Manager Technical Yavapai College Analyst Banner Programmer General GROUNDS CONTROL LANDCAPE FOREMAN & LABORERS Dental Apache Dental Porcelain Techs Retail TOTAL WINE & MORE WINE TEAM MEMBERS, CASHIER & STOCK MEMEBERS Mens BasketballDucks, not Cats, moving up pecking orderTucson, Arizona | Published: 01.06.2008
At high noon Saturday, Arizona had two sure advantages over the Oregon Ducks: crowd support, obviously, and the coaching matchup, with pugnacious Kevin O'Neill over the pretentious Ernie Kent.
Although to Kent's credit, he was surely the better dressed coach.
For the first time since 1983, I thought Oregon had better players in uniform than Arizona. And, worse, more of them. Alas, after a quarter-century; the Ducks were due.
Oregon won 84-74 and my first reaction was to wonder how in the wide, wide world of college hoops did the Ducks lose to St. Mary's, Oakland and even Arizona State?
It's not as if O'Neill didn't know how to beat Oregon. It's that he didn't have the forces necessary to carry out his orders.
On the large greaseboard in Arizona's locker room, O'Neill plainly specified how the Wildcats would be able to beat the Ducks. In order, under "KEYS TO VICTORY,'' O'Neill wrote:
● Take the "three'' out of Oregon's game.
● Transition defense; know who you have.
● No blowbys.
And as if to really make it clear, he repeated steps, writing "transition defense; no three's.''
It was painful to watch.
The Ducks rained threes on the Wildcats all afternoon. At one point in the first half, they made seven out of 10. Many of them were uncontested. And when Arizona's defensive players successfully guarded the Ducks in early-offense situations, Malik Hairston or Bryce Taylor would, in O'Neill's term, "blowby'' the Wildcats for easy layups.
Oregon shot .559 from the field. It seemed like .959
"We didn't get in their airspace,'' a glum O'Neill said after the game. "For the first time in quite some time, we were bad defensively.''
The Ducks had a lot to do with that. Taylor, Hairston and sweet-shooting center Maarty Leunen may not (and probably aren't) first-round NBA draft picks, but they are superb college players who have scored a collective 3,576 points in more than three seasons each.
Arizona, by comparison, is an expansion team, just getting started with a new coach and a new system, playing without their most explosive scorer, Jerryd Bayless.
I found it odd that Chase Budinger, who lamented his club's defensive performance, completed his assessment by saying "we've gotta get back to that defensive system of Arizona basketball.''
Arizona's "defensive system'' is all of 14 games old. In some ways, they were sitting ducks on Saturday, down by 19 points before they saw the whites of Oregon's distance-shooting eyes.
The irony to Saturday's loss at McKale is that the acquisition of O'Neill was probably triggered by Arizona's 69-50 loss to the Ducks at last year's Pac-10 tournament. The Ducks made 11 of 20 three-point attempts in that "blowby'' and Lute Olson had no help on the bench, defensively or offensively.
Arizona's reserves scored four points in that Pac-10 elimination loss to the Ducks. Arizona's bench scored six points Saturday.
O'Neill hasn't had enough time to fully implement his defensive system or, more importantly, to recruit the types of players who can operate it effectively.
In Saturday's Q&A session with reporters, O'Neill began answers this way:
"When you're down players …''
"There's not enough on the bench. …''
"There aren't enough bodies over there. …'
Over the last 25 years, Arizona almost always had an answer on the bench — a glut of talented bodies — and was versatile enough to match style with style, or, often, simply overpower the other guy.
But when the Ducks play their fast, mobile, perimeter lineup, the '08 Wildcats don't have enough fast, mobile, perimeter players to effectively match up.
O'Neill used walk-on David Bagga in the final minute of the first half, which isn't to suggest Bagga is a speed merchant. Instead, Bagga just plays hard and with emotion. That will come to be the trademark of this UA team. It will play hard and with emotion but it won't often be able to out-man anybody, even Oregon State.
"We're not a particularly quick team, let's face it,'' O'Neill said. "That's why we need to be perfect in our transition defense.''
It is unrealistic to expect young UA subs Fendi Onobun and Jamelle Horne, both built for a punishing and slower in-the-paint game, to be able to cover Hairston and Taylor in transition. But with a limited bench, that's what the Wildcats were forced to try for 13 collective minutes Saturday.
O'Neill was checkmated early.
When Bayless returns, possibly against ASU on Wednesday, the Wildcats should be able to shoot their way out of some tricky situations in some of the remaining 16 Pac-10 games. But Saturday isn't likely to be the last time the Wildcats find themselves out-manned and out of moves.
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