Duck Soup ThoughtZ™

[RichZ]

1. I really have no use for Walton as an announcer. Two minutes into the first half, he says, "This game's not over yet." Good observation, Bill!
2. It sure seemed like we were playing 5 on 8 for much of the game. 25 to 16 on fouls? Really?
3. Donovan picked a good night for his coming out party. I was kind of shocked that he only had 4 FG. It sure seemed like more. But his whole line in the box score was downright impressive. 8 boards (4 offensive) 2 dimes, 2 steals, 4 blocks and no turnovers to go with his nine points. And he dd it on national TV. I guess the rest of college basketball now knows that they have to gameplan for him as well as Adama.
4. Between Clingan and Sanogo, we got 21 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 5 blocks and 0 turnovers out of our center position.
5. We played a team that starts 3 seven footers and out rebounded them by 6.
6. Scoring-wise, Newton owned the first half, then Hawkins took over in the 2nd half.
7. JoeyC had a 4 dime, 11 point night, and even played some creditable defense. Liking this guy a little more every game. And after watching what passed for defense by the rubber duckies' guards, I can't ever complain about his D again.
8. AJax hasn't found his groove yet, and the injury layoff certainly didn't help.
9. Looked to me like the Ducks devoted most of their strategizing to defending Sanogo. They had at least two, and often 3 bigs crowd him in the post, knowing that findinfg and getting the ball to one of the open men on the perimeter is not really in his skill set. It worked pretty well, at least in the first half. But they used an entirely different strategy when Clingan took over the post, surrounding him with smaller guys trying to knock the ball free. That didn't work at all.
10. The only column in the box score that Oregon won was FT%. Both teams sucked from the line, but they made 56% of their 25 freebies, while we only made 54.5% of our 11.
11. What was I saying earlier about playing 5 on 8? 3 fouls on UConn (Karaban, Sanogo, Alleyne) in the first 14 seconds of the 2nd half!
12. I kinda like the fact that our UConn record 17th three in the game came from Adama. The announcers still act surprised when he takes one. He's now 7 of 10 for the year. I don't need a calculator to figure out that his 3 has become a pretty effective weapon for us.
13. Walton ignored the game and rambled on and on about the old days with Phil Knight for over 4 minutes of game time (almost ten minutes of real time) while the play-by-play guy sat there twiddling his thumbs. That 4 minutes of the game clock pretty much coincided with the good guys breaking the game open, going from a 2 to 3 point game with a few lead changes to a 9 to 12 point lead that they'd never relinquish.
14. Tonight's player of the game -- Newton in the first half, and a tossup between Hawk and Clingan in the 2nd half. I'll give it to Newton despite the fact that he only scored 2 points (on free throws) in the 2nd half. He still made his presence known with 3 dimes, 2 boards and 2 steals in the half, after scoring 21 in the first half.
15. I believe all of the Oregon schools lost tonight. State lost to Duke, Portland lost to UNC, and the Ducks lost to us.

 

[tjhusky]

Exactly!

 

[Castlevania]

All 4 did lose, Portland State just lost to the Zags.

 

[Icehawk]

The foul calling was weaksauce - can't wait for the BE games where the guys don't get called for the little ones.

Walton is a guy I want to hear tell ONE anecdote and that's it, not dominate the mic with rambling nonsense.

 

[Waquoit]

1. I really have no use for Walton as an announcer. Two minutes into the first half, he says, "This game's not over yet." Good observation, Bill!

FWIW, he was tweaking his partner at the time.

 

[mauconnfan]

Like Bill but allowing Phil Knight to be on that long with a really good game going on, split damn screens was beyond annoying. Just an awful job for producers not to step in by ESPN but what do you expect from them.

Great call Rich on Clingan, he was our best big last night at a crucial time. His hands were good on rebounding in traffic, his feet were good as well as his timing of just gong straight up on D very impressive job by the kid. And his ability to see the floor with solid passing is nice especially when people are making shots.

As usual nice summary!