Colorado @ Oregon (2) - 1/03/20

[Shades]

Eugene, OR - 10:00 PM ET
TV: Pac-12 Network (Ann Schatz, Elise Woodward)

Video stream:
Colorado at Oregon (tvpli)

Audio:

Live Audio - University of Oregon Athletics

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Live stats:

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[Figurehead]

11,000 plus fans expect at Knight arena for P-12 opener

 

[NWHoopFan2]

That’s without most students being back on campus yet.

 

[WestCoast]

Three votes for Colorado to win tonight already. I would set the line at Oregon -28.5 tonight and gladly take Oregon.

 

[Zanzman]

No money on the line so I figured harmless to pick the underdog

 

[DefenseBB]

Now this is the "Marquee" game of the PAC12 Opening weekend...west of the Rockies, 10 PM in the eastern time zone...Northwest section style...

 

[Shades]

Now this is the "Marquee" game of the PAC12 Opening weekend...west of the Rockies, 10 PM in the eastern time zone...Northwest section style...

There’s a few more Pac game threads out there buried about mid-page.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Different year, same result. 45-20 UO approaching halftime. Ionescu, Hebard and Sabally have 14, 10 and 10.

edit--make that 51-22

 

[Alydar]

At least I don't have to listen to the announcers go on about the PAC12 being competitive top to bottom.

51-22 with Hebard only playing 10 minutes due to 3 fouls. Anyone see what her T was for?

 

[JordyG]

Oregon looking like, and is still, the best team in the country IMO.

 

[Shades]

Oregon breached 100 pts against another weak undefeated team.

 

[FridaFriend]

Oregon is at least the second best one-loss team in the country.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Oregon is at least the second best one-loss team in the country.

Who is ahead of them among 1 loss teams? Someone could try to make a case for Baylor and South Carolina. I can't see Stanford being Oregon at this point.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Hebard went over 2000 points, Ionescu over 900 assists (very short list). Also 2000+ point teammates is pretty rare.

 

[jonson]

10,400 in the stands tonight, with Oregon averaging somewhere between 9K and 10k for the season so far. The number is likely to get a bit higher as the season progresses, and will, as far as I know, be a record for Pac12 WBB. When Graves arrived the number was around 1K.

This year's team may not be as efficient offensively as last year's version--although the game tonight suggests they're getting there (6 turnovers vs. 26 assists)--but they are quite a bit better defensively (Moore has been a major influence here, I think), and they are also deeper: 33 points from the bench tonight, including 19 from freshmen.

 

[bballnut90]

At least I don't have to listen to the announcers go on about the PAC12 being competitive top to bottom.

51-22 with Hebard only playing 10 minutes due to 3 fouls. Anyone see what her T was for?

Chippiness that turned into mild shoving and jawing. Double t

 

[Figurehead]

Even with many bench players and no starters playing in the fourth Oregon was stepping on the gas. They were toying with Colorado at times.

 

[mbr33ct]

Did fans really believe this game was going to be close? Colorado had no chance in this game. You look at their OOC schedule, 11 games were played against teams that belong in the so called Quadrant 3 (5 games) and Quadrant 4 (7 games)...talk about cupcake city.

On a side note, there must have been a mandate from the PAC-12 Commissioner for the teams to load up on Q3 ans Q4 OOC scheduling. Before yesterdays games, I took the liberty to break down the teams OOC scheduling (WarrenNolan.com) per Quadrant. Games the 10 teams played against teams in Q1=19; Q2=21; Q3=32 and Q4=48...total 120 games. As a conference 66% of games were played against Q3 & Q4 teams, while 33% were against Q1 & Q2 teams. Looking at these 10 (teams) charts side by side, this could not be a coincidence, it must be a strategy by the conference to "elevate" the conference.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Did fans really believe this game was going to be close? Colorado had no chance in this game. You look at their OOC schedule, 11 games were played against teams that belong in the so called Quadrant 3 (5 games) and Quadrant 4 (7 games)...talk about cupcake city.

On a side note, there must have been a mandate from the PAC-12 Commissioner for the teams to load up on Q3 ans Q4 OOC scheduling. Before yesterdays games, I took the liberty to break down the teams OOC scheduling (WarrenNolan.com) per Quadrant. Games the 10 teams played against teams in Q1=19; Q2=21; Q3=32 and Q4=48...total 120 games. As a conference 66% of games were played against Q3 & Q4 teams, while 33% were against Q1 & Q2 teams. Looking at these 10 (teams) charts side by side, this could not be a coincidence, it must be a strategy by the conference to "elevate" the conference.

View attachment 49640

Since the PAC-12 has 12 teams, who are you excluding in this analysis? There aren't just "10 teams."

I also think your analysis is taking a pretty ungenerous view of things. A more reasonable explanation is that there just aren't as many D1 teams out west - even Stanford has some really soft OOC games every year against the Eastern Washington, San Jose St., San Francisco, UC Davis, etc., types, simply because it's hard to get enough games against (relatively) local OOC competition. But I can assure you Tara is not a "load up on cupcakes" type. I can't speak for every other coach, but my general view is that Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, Arizona St., and Washington St. have all historically sought out strong OOC games, but it's hard to fill out a 12-13 game schedule with them.

I think the part of college basketball that casual fans least appreciate is the difficulties entailed in scheduling - it's a logistical nightmare that involves a ton of moving pieces, costs, and constraints. Just fitting all the other schools into a calendar is hard enough alone, let alone logistics, budget, travel times (and modes), class & NCAA restrictions, etc. There's a Kelly Graves interview somewhere where he talks about how it's far and away his least favorite part of the job, and how much of a hassle it is (and note that Oregon probably has at most 4-5 plausible schools they can schedule OOC games with that don't require a flight). And really easy to critique on the sidelines when, in the end, for any number of reasons beyond a team's control, a team's OOC schedule isn't as strong as would be preferred.

ETA: It's also worth noting how much harder it is to schedule good OOC competition in the PAC-12 - every single away game against another P5 school is in a different time zone, whereas Duke/UNC and South Carolina, or Texas A&M and Texas, Iowa & Iowa St., Kentucky & Louisville, etc., can also schedule strong OOC games with just a short bus ride. Which also means you can have so-so Q2/Q3 South Carolina-Clemson, Notre Dame-Ohio St., Florida St.-Florida, etc. without much travel.

By comparison, Washington St. to Miami, Oregon to UConn, and Stanford to Tennessee are 2-3 time zone games requiring cross country flights and often 9 or 10 a.m. body-clock start times.

 

[Plebe]

Did fans really believe this game was going to be close? Colorado had no chance in this game. You look at their OOC schedule, 11 games were played against teams that belong in the so called Quadrant 3 (5 games) and Quadrant 4 (7 games)...talk about cupcake city.

On a side note, there must have been a mandate from the PAC-12 Commissioner for the teams to load up on Q3 ans Q4 OOC scheduling. Before yesterdays games, I took the liberty to break down the teams OOC scheduling (WarrenNolan.com) per Quadrant. Games the 10 teams played against teams in Q1=19; Q2=21; Q3=32 and Q4=48...total 120 games. As a conference 66% of games were played against Q3 & Q4 teams, while 33% were against Q1 & Q2 teams. Looking at these 10 (teams) charts side by side, this could not be a coincidence, it must be a strategy by the conference to "elevate" the conference.

View attachment 49640

I'd be curious to see how those percentages compare to other p5 conferences. I suspect very comparable. Roughly one-third of OOC games vs. teams in the top 100 sounds pretty typical.

 

[Plebe]

Since the PAC-12 has 12 teams, who are you excluding in this analysis? There aren't just "10 teams."

I also think your analysis is taking a pretty ungenerous view of things. A more reasonable explanation is that there just aren't as many D1 teams out west - even Stanford has some really soft OOC games every year against the Eastern Washington, San Jose St., San Francisco, UC Davis, etc., types, simply because it's hard to get enough games against (relatively) local OOC competition. But I can assure you Tara is not a "load up on cupcakes" type. I can't speak for every other coach, but my general view is that Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, Arizona St., and Washington St. have all historically sought out strong OOC games, but it's hard to fill out a 12-13 game schedule with them.

I think the part of college basketball that casual fans least appreciate is the difficulties entailed in scheduling - it's a logistical nightmare that involves a ton of moving pieces, costs, and constraints. Just fitting all the other schools into a calendar is hard enough alone, let alone logistics, budget, travel times (and modes), class & NCAA restrictions, etc. There's a Kelly Graves interview somewhere where he talks about how it's far and away his least favorite part of the job, and how much of a hassle it is (and note that Oregon probably has at most 4-5 plausible schools they can schedule OOC games with that don't require a flight). And really easy to critique on the sidelines when, in the end, for any number of reasons beyond a team's control, a team's OOC schedule isn't as strong as would be preferred.

ETA: It's also worth noting how much harder it is to schedule good OOC competition in the PAC-12 - every single away game against another P5 school is in a different time zone, whereas Duke/UNC and South Carolina, or Texas A&M and Texas, Iowa & Iowa St., Kentucky & Louisville, etc., can also schedule strong OOC games with just a short bus ride. Which also means you can have so-so Q2/Q3 South Carolina-Clemson, Notre Dame-Ohio St., Florida St.-Florida, etc. without much travel.

By comparison, Washington St. to Miami, Oregon to UConn, and Stanford to Tennessee are 2-3 time zone games requiring cross country flights and often 9 or 10 a.m. body-clock start times.

Another thing to point out is that the RPI is still very premature as a sorting tool. Texas (101) and Tennessee (115) are way below their Massey rankings.

 

[Figurehead]

Which is interesting that Oregon does not do a home and home with Gonzaga with the mens and womens teams.

 

[jonson]

Which is interesting that Oregon does not do a home and home with Gonzaga with the mens and womens teams.

This assumes that Oregon is the only team involved in the scheduling. And, on the women's side, I wonder if Graves's history at Gonzaga and/or the fact that his former assistant is now the head coach there are complicating factors.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Which is interesting that Oregon does not do a home and home with Gonzaga with the mens and womens teams.

This assumes that Oregon is the only team involved in the scheduling. And, on the women's side, I wonder if Graves's history at Gonzaga and/or the fact that his former assistant is now the head coach there are complicating factors.

Indeed. I can't speak on the men's side, but on the women's side, the Zags play home-and-away with WSU every year (which is logistically quite easy), Stanford home and away for most years in the past decade, and a few times they've had home-and-aways with USC. (Which gives the Zags a recruiting presence in both NorCal and SoCal.) Do the Zags really want more than 2-3 PAC-12 teams in any given OOC season? How much recruiting or RPI utility is there to schlepping to Eugene, Corvallis, or Salt Lake City if you already have a handful of very good OOC games scheduled? (Though I'll admit I'm actually surprised that Washington and Gonzaga have not had an OOC match in the past decade.)

And in terms of the Oregon side, travel from Eugene to Spokane is quite a hassle for how theoretically short a distance it is - it's either two flights, a 1.5 hour drive to PDX to fly direct, or a 7-hour drive assuming no weather problems. I wouldn't be surprised if that, coupled with the awkwardness of Graves playing against his old team, might not make it an especially desirable OOC matchup. More than anything, the benefit of cupcakes is that they come to you, so you don't have to agree to home-and-aways. Neither Oregon or Gonzaga is of a caliber that the other can expect a visit without reciprocation.

 

[mbr33ct]

Since the PAC-12 has 12 teams, who are you excluding in this analysis? There aren't just "10 teams."

I also think your analysis is taking a pretty ungenerous view of things. A more reasonable explanation is that there just aren't as many D1 teams out west - even Stanford has some really soft OOC games every year against the Eastern Washington, San Jose St., San Francisco, UC Davis, etc., types, simply because it's hard to get enough games against (relatively) local OOC competition. But I can assure you Tara is not a "load up on cupcakes" type. I can't speak for every other coach, but my general view is that Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, Arizona St., and Washington St. have all historically sought out strong OOC games, but it's hard to fill out a 12-13 game schedule with them.

I think the part of college basketball that casual fans least appreciate is the difficulties entailed in scheduling - it's a logistical nightmare that involves a ton of moving pieces, costs, and constraints. Just fitting all the other schools into a calendar is hard enough alone, let alone logistics, budget, travel times (and modes), class & NCAA restrictions, etc. There's a Kelly Graves interview somewhere where he talks about how it's far and away his least favorite part of the job, and how much of a hassle it is (and note that Oregon probably has at most 4-5 plausible schools they can schedule OOC games with that don't require a flight). And really easy to critique on the sidelines when, in the end, for any number of reasons beyond a team's control, a team's OOC schedule isn't as strong as would be preferred.

ETA: It's also worth noting how much harder it is to schedule good OOC competition in the PAC-12 - every single away game against another P5 school is in a different time zone, whereas Duke/UNC and South Carolina, or Texas A&M and Texas, Iowa & Iowa St., Kentucky & Louisville, etc., can also schedule strong OOC games with just a short bus ride. Which also means you can have so-so Q2/Q3 South Carolina-Clemson, Notre Dame-Ohio St., Florida St.-Florida, etc. without much travel.

By comparison, Washington St. to Miami, Oregon to UConn, and Stanford to Tennessee are 2-3 time zone games requiring cross country flights and often 9 or 10 a.m. body-clock start times.

Don't know why I thought the PAC-12 only had 10 teams, I should go back and revisit my analysis with the 12 teams, (my apologizes to Utah and Wash St for forgetting them) I would bet the percentages will not vary much from what I previously posted. Since you brought up Stanford, I was going to add that of all the teams in the PAC-12 (I need to add two more), Tara's schedule was the only one that was equally split between the four Quads (3 each)...kudos to Tara.