Two years ago, the Oregon Ducks lost badly at Arizona.
They followed with wins in nine of their next 10 games to close out the regular season.
Last year, the Oregon Ducks were swept out of the Bay Area by California and Stanford.
They followed with five straight wins to close out the regular season.
This year, the Oregon Ducks just lost to Colorado on the road, a game that snapped Oregon’s 17-game winning streak.
Following the patterns of the last two years, logic would assume the Ducks are about to go on some type of run now, right?
It’s not so simple, coach Dana Altman said.
“I hope so,” Altman said. “Every team is different. Every group that you put together is different. I don’t know how they will respond. I’d like to believe with how competitive they are that they respond in a positive way.”
For Oregon, it wasn’t just that the Ducks lost to one of the worst teams in the Pac-12, it was how they lost. The Buffaloes controlled the game from the opening tip-off. They beat the Ducks on the boards, the shot better, controlled the ball better and kept their composure during crunch time better than the Ducks did.
This wasn’t a game in which the Buffaloes snuck by the Ducks. It was a stomping.
But sometimes, a team needs a good stomping.
“Honestly, I think we needed to lose a game,” said junior Jordan Bell. “I think we’ve been kind of sloppy and getting away with it. In Utah we started sloppy and ended sloppy and got away with it.”
A loss on the road really shouldn’t come as much of a shock. The Ducks were riding the best unbeaten streak Oleybet in program history and eventually had to come down to earth.
“Their hasn’t been an undefeated team this 1976 and there’s a reason for it,” Altman said.
For Oregon, bottoming out now as opposed to over the next two weeks would be the prefered scenario.
Oregon is 8-1 now in Pac-12 play, a game behind Arizona and two games ahead of UCLA. The Ducks play the Wildcats on Saturday before flying to Southern California the next week for a rematch with the Bruins, who Oregon beat earlier in the season.
Oregon players say they believe the loss to Colorado can serve as a humbling shot in the arm. They believed they were getting too casual and a little bit overconfident, two traits that won’t serve a team well over the next two weeks.
“I think everybody realizes that we weren’t supposed to lose that game,” senior Chris Boucher said. “We know how good we can be and losing this game just made us come together more.”
But before the Ducks get to Arizona, they’ll have a test of focus on Thursday when Arizona State comes to town. The Sun Devils rank near the bottom of the conference with a 3-6 Pac-12 mark and have lost five of six games. With Arizona coming two days later, this would normally fall under the description of a “trap game,” but maybe not coming off the heels of the Colorado loss.
The Sun Devils have a pair of potent scorers in Torian Graham (18.7 ppg) and Tra Holder (17.7 ppg) and play with a relatively small lineup. Of ASU’s top five players in minutes per game, Obina Oleka is the only player taller than 6-foot-5.
Altman has emphasized to players like Bell and Boucher the need for scoring inside and the Spartans give the Ducks a good opportunity to do just that.
“I think inside we could give them problems, but with their guards, me and Jordan and all the bigs are going to have to play on the perimeter and be ready to guard,” Boucher said. “I think it goes both ways, but Jordan and I are capable of doing a lot of stuff.”
— Tyson Alger
talger@oregonian.com
@tysonalger
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