Farewell to Mac Court

Trafton B.

March 7, 2010 - 5:45 PM

MacArthur Court was built in 1926, making it the second oldest NCAA basketball arena in the nation, second only to Fordham University's Rose Hill Gym in New York. The first ever game was played on January 14, 1927 when the Oregon Tall Firs beat Pacific University 38-10. They didn't even have a mascot back then.

Saturday - March 7, 2010 - marks a historic day in Oregon sports. Yesterday, as the Duck men's basketball team beat the Washington State Cougars 75-66 in the final game at Mac Court.

Okay, from what I understand, that statement is only partially true. Apparently, we actually have a few more games at Mac Court at the beginning of next year, but this was definitely the last Pac-10 game. The new stadium is set to open January 2011, after a few pre-season games.

Our team is moving across campus to the soon-to-open Matthew Knight Arena, named after Phil Knight's son. That's what you get for donating a whole bunch of money to the project...you chose the name. Not to shabby. Thanks, Uncle Phil.

We're all looking forward to next year for several reasons. First, the past few years of Duck's basketball have been, uh, lackluster one might say. We fell from glory after the 2006-07 season, when senior Aaron Brooks (now a stud for the Houston Rockets) lead the Ducks to a 29-8 record and a trip to the Elite 8 in the NCAA Championships where we lost to the Florida Gators, who would go on to win it all. Again, not to shabby.

Last year, however, we only won two conference games against Stanford and Oregon State, which were the only two games my roommates and I went to. We were the guys that rushed the court with a sign saying, "WIN" after the season finale against OSU.

We're looking to the future now. New season. New arena. New coaching staff. An announcement leaked about the future of coach Ernie Kent right after the game ended, saying Kent will not be invited back to coach the Ducks next season along with the majority of his staff. I think all Duck fans enjoyed having Ernie around and we'll be sad to see him go after 13 seasons as head coach, not to mention four years as a player from 1973-1977. His nickname was "Million Moves" and he played on a team refered to as the "Kamikaze Kids." How's that for Oregon sports trivia?

That said, though, it's time to shake things up a little bit. ‘Cuz whatever we doing now, just isn't working. We all have hope for next year.

The regular season ended with a bang. As always, we celebrated our graduating seniors, Joevan Catron and Tajuan Porter. Tajuan was taken out with 30 seconds left in the game when he jogged to half court, took a bow and waved to the crowd one last night before watching the rest of the game unfold from the bench. Classy move. We all wanted Joevan to get a minute or two, but his injured back kept him sidelined.

The favorite part of the game for my roommates and me was snagging Duckeroni at the end of the game. Duckeronis, for those of you unfamiliar with Oregon basketball, are the yellow, foam finger-like things that you see waving behind the basket when the opposing team is shooting free throws. We thought it would be a nice memento of the event. I don't really see why we needed three-dozen of them, but the more the merrier I guess.

We waved them around campus and at honking cars on the walk back in celebration, while cheering things like "Ninth Place!" and "We're Not Last!" Now, we actually have to play a tiebreaker against WSU to determine who gets in as the eighth place team in the Pac-10 tourney. So, technically we could still be last. USC ended in fifth, but they took themselves out of the tournament due to miscellaneous recruiting scandals last year involving OJ Mayo.

The point being, believe it or not, the Ducks still have a chance at making it to March Madness. All we need to do is beat WSU for the third time this year, and then win three more games against tough opponents who have all dominated us at least once earlier this season. Okay, maybe we don't have fate on our side this year, but it's not over yet.

Can anyone say...dark horse?