Friday morning sure are a lot more fun with a basketball team that can get wins. Here's your quack:
- The Ducks knocked off ASU on the road to get their 3rd conference victory. The Ducks held an early 11-point lead, only to blow it, but they battled back and got the 67-58 victory over the Sun Devils. The Ducks, per usual, had their struggles scoring, but they stayed in the game with good defense. The Ducks forced 16 turnovers, and scored 21 points off those turnovers, and held the Sun Devils to only 3 points in the final 5 minutes.
- The Oregon women also pulled out a good victory, beating Arizona 87-73 despite dealing with injuries to stars Amanda Johnson and Nia Jackson. The Ducks pulled out to an early 24-5 lead when they were on fire from behind the arc, and cruised to a 21 point halftime lead. Freshmen Lexi Petersen stepped up at point with Jackson battling injury, to lead the Ducks with 17.
- Ted Miller gives Oregon its season grade. He gives the Ducks an A overall, but the defense only a B, which I think is highly unfair, especially since he mentions total yards to back up that grade. But in conference games, Oregon had the best defensive yards per play in the conference at 5.00. In both S&P+ and FEI the Ducks had the best defenses in the country by a pretty decent margin. Giving the best defense in the conference a B is a joke.
- Matt Prehm has a list of the top 10 "skill guys" returning next season in the Pac-12, and includes QBs on the list. The main thing taht sticks out is that there are a lot of great players in the conference, which will make things fun.
- There have been a lot of recent decommits that are considering Oregon in the last week. The Oregonian has a rundown of the latest.
- With their Oregon careers over, many Ducks are going to try to get a shot at the NFL. That starts with the various post-postseason bowls. David Paulson, Josh Kaddu, and Lavasier Tuinei have accepted invites.
- Lastly, Rob Moseley has his review of the most disappointing unit of 2011, the wide receivers. The first thing we should remember is that this was a unit just killed by injury, with two starters missing multiple games. What happens in 2012 will be much more important. Receivers coach Scott Frost is finally getting some talent at the position, and it's now time to see if he can coach them up.
What do you think? Are we going to see significant improvement from the wide receivers next season? Leave your thoughts and any other quack below. GO DUCKS!