How ‘bout them Ducks (Winter Version)!

Trafton B.

January 30, 2010 - 7:18 PM

The Ducks men's basketball team in one word: streaky.

Against my better judgment of spending my Saturday studying at the Laundromat, I decided to get a ticket to the basketball game against the visiting USC Trojans. Now, I don't know what's going on in Ernie Kent's clubhouse, but our team seems to be having some problems with consistency this year. We'll beat Washington and Washington State on the road one weekend, and then well get stomped by Oregon State, Arizona and Arizona State at Mac Court the following weekend. I doesn't really make too much sense, but then again college sports rarely do. Today's game surely did not disappoint, and it was one of the finest Ducks basketball game I've seen so far.

Our two Junior College recruits, Jeremy Jacob from Louisiana and Malcolm Armstead from Alabama led the charge with 19 and 18 points respectively, while senior guard Tajuan Porter gave his normal, veteran performance. In short, we had control of the game until the Trojans rallied from a nine-point deficit to tie the game at 47 points with five minutes left in the game, and then the Ducks went on a 20-10 run to close out the game.

The real story of the game came from the USC bench of all places though. USC Athletic Trainer (or whatever the heck his job is) was whistled for a technical foul late in the game after he had been barking to the referees throughout the course of the game. Porter hit both free throws, and the rest is history as they say.

Now, Oregon basketball fans, more fondly referred to as the Pit Crew, are known for being on the raucous side. So, we had a field day with this USC trainer. The chants began as a simple "Sit Down Coach!" to which everyone shared a good laugh. Then as we realized that he basically handed the game to us, we decided that cheering "Thank You Baldy!" would be appropriate. And finally, as we noticed him being chewed out by USC head coach during a time out and stealthily leaving the game promptly afterwards, we alternated between cheers of "You Got Fired" and "Where is Baldy?"

Life isn't easy being a visiting team at Mac Court, even for the seemingly meaningless coaches.
We're riding a two game win streak as we head off to Corvallis next Saturday. I hope Ernie figured out something that working, but then again, maybe it's just the Pink uniforms. Either way, the Duck put another one in the victory column.

Special thanks to goducks.com for the picture.