Last night's game at Hec Edmundon Arena was bittersweet. Bitter because Abdul Gaddy will not be playing the rest of the season; sweet because Terrence Ross absolutely torched the Ducks he was so hot.
It was easy to see that the team misses Abdul. He was sitting on the bench in street clothes where he'll be for the rest of the season after tearing his left ACL in practice on Wednesday. He provides such a calming influence when he's running the point. You could see the Dawgs were in need of some calming during the first half. We shot pretty poorly (17-38, 48%) which allowed Oregon to stay close, ending the half up 39 - 33. Our poor shooting had little to do with Oregon's defense; it seemed like we were rushing things. Abdul would have calmed that down.
The second half was a different story, though it didn't look that way at the beginning. The Oregon Ducks came out with a lot of intensity and actually led the game at one point; 42-21 with about 2 minutes elapsed in the half. The lead traded back and forth for about 5 minutes with the Ducks staying in it well during that period. However, they could not sustain that intensity. At the 13:31 mark we pulled ahead on a 3-pointer by Scott Suggs and then motored steadily away, finished up with a cushion of 18 points.
Isaiah Thomas (20) and Terrence Ross (25) combined for 45 points, most of them in the second half. At one point Zeke was bringing the ball up court, drifting just left of center. From the far right corner TR flashed his hand up and took off for the hoop, slashing quickly across the court. Isaiah let a pass fly high, Terrence gathered it in and thundered home an awesome alley-oop dunk. Beautiful stuff to watch. Terrence had his best game yet. He sure doesn't play like a freshman, even though he is. I'd imagine he's going to be getting alot of those minutes that used to go to Abdul.
MBA had another solid game; 13 points, two blocks, and 8 rebounds. Scott Suggs chipped in 13 on 5-8 shooting; 3 of 5 from 3 point range. Justin Holiday had 7 and Darnell Gant had 4. Venoy Overton started the game in Abdul Gaddy's place, but he seemed oddly ineffective as a starter. He's been at his best coming off the bench and getting into the head of the man he's defending. I'm guessing it's going to take him some time to adjust to this new role. I hope he gets the time to make the adjustment.
Although I am a U of Oregon graduate (Masters in Computer Science-Education in 1986) I found that at no time during the game did I find myself rooting for the Ducks. From the beginning I pulled for the Huskies. Odd how loyalty to a team works.
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- RoboDad
- I'm currently 60 years old. I currently work as the learning management system specialist for American University of Madaba in Madaba, Jordan. I was originally certified as a high-school English teacher and taught school for 13 years (1 year of substituting, 1 year of 7th grade, 2 years of a combined 5th, 6th, 7th grade, 9 years of 8th grade). I've worked for hardware and software companies for the past 23 years doing training, training materials development, certification test development and other education related stuff. My wife and I have raised four children to adulthood; some of them live at home at the moment, but that won't last (they're too independent for that). We live at home with 2 Golden Retrievers, 2 black cats, a crazy cat, and, during the winter, 70,000 coho salmon.
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