Through the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the Pac-12 was 2-5. But when OR had an opening, and pie-in-the-sky names like Rick Pitino and Tom Izzo were flying around, the Ducks found a coach’s coach in Dana Altman.
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“Chris is an outstanding young man, and we’re excited he’ll be able to continue progress toward his degree and compete for one more season”, OR athletics director Rob Mullens said in a statement. “We kept our composure, got buckets and got stops”.
OR (28-6) won the regular-season title and Utah (26-8) was right behind.
Boucher’s petition to the NCAA was conducted as a response to a dispute regarding when “his eligibility clock started”, but the issue has been resolved and the 6-10 forward will be available for the 2016-17 season.
This Pac-12 swoon comes after OR builds a new arena, Utah and Colorado enter the conference and strengthen it, and the league makes the inspired decision to move its tournament to Las Vegas.
Harassing the Utes across the court and jumping into passing lanes, the Ducks had 13 steals and scored 28 points off the Utes’ 20 turnovers. Chris Boucher had 15 points and tournament MVP Elgin Cook added 11 with six assists.
“I wouldn’t want to play them”. The Pac-12 was in fact a conference loaded with plenty of talented teams. Many will roast the conference, and that’s a little lazy. Matt Krook takes the mound for OR and will look to even the series at one game a piece.
Five of the seven teams from Pac-12 Conference flopped in the first round of the 2016 NCAA Tournament.
The Ducks’ nine-match winning streak ended Sunday. It finished a brutal slide for USC, who lost 8 of their last 11 games. “We just didn’t have the energy or the focus to come back from those easy baskets that we gave them”. “So they’ll be ready to go”. USC dissolved in the final minute of a loss to Providence. The Sooners have National Player of the Year candidate Buddy Hield (who in our opinion, should win the award), a stretch-four who can be a difference maker in Ryan Spangler, and good guard play in Isaiah Cousins (13 ppg, 4.6 apg) and Jordan Woodard (12.6 ppg, 3 apg). Suddenly, the Pac-12 has just two teams alive – No. 3 Utah, which took care of business on Thursday, and No. 1 OR, which is now playing Holy Cross.
Oregon: The Ducks played in consecutive tournament championship games for the first time in program history…. The Ducks (22-10) advance to the third round, where they will host Pac-12 rival Utah on Wednesday. “But they’ve had two days off. Now it’s the NCAA Tournament”.
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OR will be a high seed in the NCAA Tournament next week.
