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Dear Oregon Basketball, You Have to Be Kidding Me

By Alex Weber

PORTLAND, OR - DECEMBER 17: Head coach Dana Altman of the Oregon Ducks speaks with Payton Pritchard #3 during the second half of the game against the UNLV Rebels at Moda Center on December 17, 2016 in Portland, Oregon.The Ducks won the game 83-63. (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)
PORTLAND, OR - DECEMBER 17: Head coach Dana Altman of the Oregon Ducks speaks with Payton Pritchard #3 during the second half of the game against the UNLV Rebels at Moda Center on December 17, 2016 in Portland, Oregon.The Ducks won the game 83-63. (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images) /
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Oregon-Texas Southern was a grade-A disaster. A real mess. The Oregon Basketball players and coaches should be ashamed of themselves.

Why? Just Why, Oregon Basketball? Last night I flipped on the unreasonably-difficult-to-find Pac-12 Network and was set to watch Dana Altman’s boys blow the doors off some crappy 1-4 team that had just lost to Evansville by 22. Instead, I watched the Ducks completely fall apart defensively in the second half as the Tigers spanked them, putting up a whopping 57 points in the final 20 minutes of play.

I’ll open up with the positives before I rant about the cornucopia of negatives this game produced. Here’s the good: Bol Bol, VJ Bailey, Will Richardson. Those were the only 3 players who came to play–on offense at least; and were the only ones who played as good or better than usual. Bol was frickin absurd again–putting up 32 and 4 three-pointers. Apparently, a career day from Bol isn’t even enough to beat Texas Southern. That’s swell news.

Now, the bad. 89 points! 89 points given up to Texas Southern! Good grief! “Well, they probably just hit a bunch of dumb threes” is what the casual fan would think. No, they were just 9-27 from beyond the arc. Instead, they just destroyed us on the glass and picked apart the porous D for easy twos all night.  We have BOL BOL! We should not be out-rebounded by TEXAS SOUTHERN!

It was a stunning and depressing defeat…but the worst part is who their coach is. JOHNNY freakin JONES! Remember, the former LSU coach who failed to make the NIT with Ben Simmons and Antonio Blakeney. The guy Ben Simmons basically said didn’t know how to coach basketball.

Uggggh. This game took a machete, cut my leg wide open and then dumped a gallon of salt into it. With as much perceived talent as the Oregon Basketball program has, with or without Louis King, these kind of losses are absolutely unacceptable. This game hurts now, but it’s going to hurt even more by the time Selection Sunday rolls around and we’re dropped a whole seed-line because of this embarrassment.

Oregon must get back to their winning ways, but it won’t be easy as a true road game at Houston stares them square in the eyes. Show up unprepared yet again, and a solid Houston squad will punk the young Ducks.

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