EUGENE — There usually comes a time in February when college basketball’s long slog to March begins to feel more like a sprint.
The nonconference portion of the schedule is in the rearview and, at this point, the Pac-12 slate has narrowed as experts’ projections for the NCAA Tournament begin to transition from “This is way too early” into “This is getting real.”
The Oregon Ducks are at that point.
For the second year in a row, the Ducks know they will be in the NCAA Tournament. A 21-3 record and a No. 5 ranking will do that for a team. What’s at stake for Oregon is seeding.
And while Oregon plowed through its first major step on Saturday with an 85-58 pasting of Arizona, things don’t let up in the near future as five of Oregon’s final seven games of the season come on the road, beginning on Thursday against No. 10 UCLA.
The uptick in intensity over this final month should be palpable.
“It’s a very difficult stretch for us,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said on Tuesday. “We’re going to have to play awfully well.”
The Arizona/UCLA/USC back-to-back-to-back should be the toughest part of the schedule for the Ducks. And while Oregon thoroughly handled the Wildcats on Saturday by shooting 64 percent from three-point range to blow out the then-No. 5 team in the nation, Thursday against the Bruins likely won’t come so easily.
After all, the Bruins have revenge on the mind.
A little more than a month ago, UCLA was Oregon. The Bruins were the toast of the Pac-12, coming into Eugene with a perfect record and a No. 2 ranking. They left with a buzzer-beating loss at the hands of Dillon Brooks and the Ducks, who downed the Bruins 89-87 in what has been one of the best games of the college basketball season.
UCLA rebounded from that loss with six straight wins, but consecutive losses to Arizona and USC have placed the Bruins two games behind the Ducks and Wildcats in the race for the Pac-12 crown. The Bruins offense still remains formidable behind the play of Lonzo Ball, T.J. Leaf and Bryce Alford, but opponents have exposed the Bruins as a team that struggles on the defensive end.
According to KenPom.com, UCLA’s defensive efficiency ranks 115 out of 351 teams in the country, taking some wind out of the sails of its No. 1 offense.
UCLA is coming off road wins against the Washington schools in which the Bruins didn’t allow more than 79 points in either game. Neither Washington nor Washington State are formidable, but UCLA coach Steve Alford hoped it was a step in the right direction as the Bruins try to get their own team settled headed into March.
“Our guys are starting to understand if we get more stops, that means we’ll be even better offensively,” Alford said. “So it’s kind of been an evolution of these guys getting it — I’m not saying they’ve got it yet, but I like where we’re at the first week in February.”
Altman must like where his Ducks are at, too, considering the way they bounced back from their loss at Colorado two weeks ago. While the Ducks looked shaky in their narrow win over Arizona State on Thursday, Saturday’s dismantling of the Wildcats may go down as one of the biggest wins of the Altman era. The Ducks’ 27-point win wasn’t as close as the score suggested, and it was a perfect sendoff for a team that controls its own destiny going forward.
There’s just that road issue.
All three of Oregon’s losses this season have come away from Matthew Knight Arena, and the Ducks’ most recent road trip saw a loss at Colorado and an uneasy win at Utah.
There might be some hope, however, that the current stretch of the schedule proves beneficial for the Ducks down the road. Arizona is an NCAA Tournament team, as is UCLA, and USC has a strong chance to slip in there as well. Altman suggested on Tuesday that the Ducks will have to win out if they want to win the conference, which would mimic the same intensity a team must play with a month from now. Oregon will play teams two through five in the Pac-12 standings over the next 18 days, with four contests coming on the road. At the same time, teams such as Arizona (4) and UCLA (5) have the bulk of their remaining schedules at home.
“Last year (in the Tournament) we had Saint Joe’s, Duke and Oklahoma,” senior Chris Boucher said. “This gets us ready for March Madness. If we lose one game now, we can still learn. In March Madness, you lose one game and you’re done, so it’s good that this is happening now.”
— Tyson Alger
talger@oreognian.com
@tysonalger
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