The surging Oregon Ducks enter the Pac-12 Tournament as arguably the league’s hottest team and perhaps one of the most cohesive in all the country.
Lead by senior guard Joseph Young, the Ducks have won five in a row and all but have an NCAA tournament invite locked up heading into this week’s Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas. So good have things been for the Ducks, they even swept their season series with Stanford for the first time in nearly forty years.
“Anything can happen,” senior Jalil Abdul-Bassit recently warned his teammates. “We’ve just got to maintain our focus, and maintain our hard work.”
It’s that kind of dogged determination that’s had the Ducks on the rise for most of the season, paved the way for them to win 15 of 16 home games and emerge as the overall No. 2 seed in the conference.
While Young (20 points, five rebounds, four assists) is a shoo-in as a finalist for Conference Player of the Year honors, he’s hardly been a one man show for Oregon. Elgin Cook (13 points, five rebounds), Dillon Brooks (11 points, five rebounds), Dwyane Benjamin (nine points, six rebounds) and Abdul-Bassit (eight points, two rebounds) have all been key and consistent contributors.
“Joe gives us a guy that can go to the basket,” said coach Dana Altman, adding “our balance is a little better than I thought it would be.”
With Sunday’s regular-season ending 65-62 road win over Oregon State, the Ducks earned a first-round tournament bye and will face the winner of Wednesday’s Oregon State vs. Colorado matchup on Thursday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena where average ticket prices will be $114.63 with a get in of $46 for that session, which includes two games.
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Oregon returned just nine players on scholarship and were picked by many to finish no higher than eighth in the conference. But somehow, some way, Altman and his men found a way to stay the course and as a result their better days have started much sooner than most everyone ever imagined they might.
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