The Oregon Ducks and Their Monster First Week of March
Arizona, UCLA, and OSU, are all that stand in the way of the Oregon Ducks and a regular season Pac-12 Title. They want to win that, and then they want to keep winning.
“But honestly—as big as this [USC] game feels—a win is still only a “nice-to-have.”
…Dana knows how to prepare for the marathon that is called: March
…There are more games ahead of us…”
- Me, last week, strategically excusing the blowout loss to USC, before it happened, mostly to protect my own feelings.
Well folks, these are those games.
Arizona tonight. UCLA on Wednesday. And at the Beavs on Saturday. All in the State of Oregon. Anything can happen.
I hope it snows tonight.
With a monster final week sitting in front of the Men’s team right now, last week’s “biggest game of the season” against USC already feels like small potatoes.
Of course, USC and UCLA both hitting road blocks against the Mountain schools has A LOT to do with that. But still, Oregon took care of both of those punks from the Bay, and they officially control their own destiny for the regular season Pac-12 title.
It’s been a long, and winding road, but tonight’s rescheduled match-up against Arizona kicks off a three game stint that puts the Ducks in “tournament mode” very early.
The Ducks’ spot in the NCAA Tournament is locked in. It would be too obvious to hedge once again and say, “oh the Ducks don’t need this week either.”
But I won’t hedge. Obviously, I want the Ducks to win. They should play to win. I think winning would be nice.
Duarte begins to take over close games, Eugene jumped back into his early-season-scorer-mode against Cal, and LJ is rebounding like a madman.
On top of the key contributors, Eric Williams is seemingly in good health, Will is showing flashes that he is still capable of being the guy, and Frank is even seriously trending towards being a viable presence down low.
Chandler Lawson has also re-rediscovered his jumper, and I expect he’ll be showing it off in one or more of these finale games.
With that laundry list of random observations now out of the way, let’s talk about tonight.
Zona isn’t the usual Zona, but it’s still gonna be a close one, like pretty much every game seems to be. You’ll hear this cliche on all the pregame shows, but the Ducks will have to avoid looking ahead to UCLA. One game a time. Take care of your business. Etc. Etc.
But I don’t think they will be overzealous. The whole season has really felt like it’s gone by one week at a time. Dana has probably enjoyed that part about it—being the supreme focuser that he is.
So this week will be no different. The momentum the Ducks gain in these next three games will snowball into Vegas, and then to Indy.
It’s March 1st, everyone.
Go Ducks.