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Arizona Wildcats @ Oregon Ducks Basketball Recap

Arizona 76, Oregon 57

While the vibe surrounding the University of Oregon’s football program is celebratory, triumphant and boldly energetic, the feeling that has come to enfold Oregon’s men’s basketball program lies at the other end of the emotional spectrum. On Thursday night, it was startling to behold the depths to which the Ducks have fallen on the hardwood, even as their gridiron brothers soar to the highest heights of power.

Yes, the Arizona Wildcats earned a 19-point triumph over the Ducks in the Pac-10 opener for both teams. Coach Sean Miller made sure that Zona was zoned in for this road trip in a season when the Wildcats are hoping to return to the NCAA Tournament just one year after seeing their 25-year streak in the Big Dance come to an end. However, with all due respect to Arizona, the major storyline of this contest has to be the funereal sense of sadness that surrounds Oregon basketball. The Ducks – who were never very close to the Wildcats throughout the second half – got as close as 13 points with 6:40 left in regulation. That’s it. The home team looked stuck in quicksand in Eugene against the more skilled assemblage of athletes from Arizona, and as a result, no one in attendance could ever generate any excitement.

The bigger backstory of this game is that it was the next-to-last game at old McArthur Court, the quirky and charming, multi-tiered building with something of an opera house feel. The gymnasium, built in 1926, is reminiscent of St. John’s Arena at Ohio State and a number of other old-time buildings that brought fans intimately close to the action. However, Mac Court also lacks the amenities that modern facilities possess; in the college sports arms race, this has become a liability. As a result, Oregon finally began to work on a new building, the Matthew Knight Center, which will become UO’s new home after this Arizona-school homestand on New Year’s weekend. That should be an occasion for happiness, but as the Ducks move into a new arena, they’re not ready to move up the ladder in the Pac-10.

One would think that with Oregon’s football team not playing until Jan. 10 against Auburn in the BCS National Championship Game, the Ducks’ basketballers would have commanded a packed house in Mac Court’s final homestand. Yet, there were seas of empty seats in the joint, as the crowd proved to be as listless as the team it halfheartedly cheered. Oregon coach Dana Altman accepted the Arkansas job a few years ago when he still held down the head-coaching post at Creighton, but Altman quickly changed his mind in a way similar to Bobby Cremins at South Carolina. This past year, Altman accepted the Oregon job, and he’s quickly realized that the program left behind by former coach Ernie Kent is not as robust as he might have hoped. Altman is desperately scrambling to get the Ducks up to speed, and since the fan base knows UO is lagging in basketball, a crisis of confidence has seeped into the program.

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McArthur Court deserves a better sendoff, but it’s not getting one. Thursday’s game should have been a celebration, but it instead had all the ambience of a memorial service with few impassioned admirers. When one realizes that Oregon basketball made an Elite Eight as recently as 2007, it’s really hard to comprehend how fast, how far, and how fully this program has disappeared from Pac-10 prominence. It’s also sad to contemplate the lack of a grand farewell for one of college basketball’s cherished shrines, a reminder of the roots of the sport in the 20th century.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer