EUGENE, Ore. — Seven years ago, when Dana Altman got to Oregon from Creighton and began recruiting for the Ducks, he and his staff established a simple baseline on the trail: Is Player X good enough to help Oregon beat Arizona?
On Saturday afternoon at a packed Matthew Knight Arena, sophomore Tyler Dorsey and his teammates proved that they were, in fact, very much in the “good enough to help Oregon beat Arizona” category, as the Ducks routed the Wildcats 85-58.
“There hasn’t been a more consistent program in the seven years that I’ve been here than them,” Altman said of the Wildcats.
Altman knew what he was getting into when he set Miller’s Wildcats as the benchmark. He had seen firsthand how well — and quickly — Miller had built a durable, talented team at Xavier.
Xavier and Creighton played four times while Miller and Altman coached at those schools, and Atlman’s Creighton teams won three of the four games. But on Dec. 5, 2007, during the final season in which the two faced off, Miller’s Xavier team walked away with the most lopsided victory in those four games: 79-66.
In 2010, their first year sharing space in the Pac-12, Altman watched as Miller’s team went 14-4 in conference play and won the league.
The benchmark was set: It was Arizona.
On Saturday, with Miller’s Wildcats and Altman’s Ducks split at 5-5 in their 10 regular-season matchups over the past seven seasons, Altman showed that he too is building a durable, talented team in Eugene.
That message to Miller was sent loudly and clearly.
Somewhere between the 16 3-pointers and the 30 points Oregon scored off turnovers, Miller must’ve seen how great this program has become. He might or might not know that Oregon has largely been built on the goal of beating Miller and the Wildcats. On Saturday, that goal was achieved.
Oregon’s 16 3s (an arena record) will own most headlines, tweets and highlight reels because that’s the bright, shiny part. That’s the part that made Dorsey and Dillon Brooks giddy in the postgame interview, in which they talked about how they haven’t had that much fun playing basketball in a long time.
Altman is happy to see his team having fun, but he also knows that kind of performance isn’t what creates sustained success. The “toughest” parts of the game, as Altman calls them, are the reasons a team becomes a year-in and year-out winner.
“The toughest things — that’s the gratifying thing,” Altman said. “When you guard and block people out and go get rebounds and dive on loose balls and take charges, that’s when you feel good about what you did.”
For that, Altman should feel very good about what his team did Saturday. Those “toughest things” that he and his assistant coaches groomed into their players are what got Oregon to Arizona’s level and what will likely keep it there.
Following the win, Altman was plenty complimentary of the Wildcats. He called the 2016-17 Arizona group (yes, the team he had just squashed by 27 points) a “Final Four team.” He said Miller should be considered for national coach of the year. He said that on another day, it could’ve been Arizona that shot lights out like that.
That’s all true. The Ducks caught lightning in a bottle with their shooting, and it was the brightest thing on the floor (even brighter than their fluorescent uniforms). It created an insurmountable lead.
But the grimy part — the defensive pressure, the offensive ball movement — looked a lot like the style of play that Arizona has become known for. That was what truly gave the Ducks the win, and it was the reason the Ducks could continue to win.
That is by Altman’s design in recruiting and coaching, which is molded around the coach who was standing opposite him on Saturday.
As such, it should come as no surprise that those same complimentary terms — the Final Four group, the COY honors — are being equally flung around about that team up in Eugene.
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