Oregon’s uniform combination Wednesday night included a yellow warmup on which was printed “ALMIGHTY DUCKS.”
It is proof that the Pac-12 does not require its teams to adhere to truth-in-advertising principles, because the Ducks, like most Pac-12 teams, could be defined as “Lord, almighty, what is wrong with that team?”
It was so much fun that UA point guard T.J. McConnell began his postgame media session by quoting Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch.
“I’m just here so I won’t get fined,” he said.
McConnell, who was fearless (and spotless) with a 10-point, five-assist, no-turnovers, no-missed shots game, smiled into the cameras and said, “When you’re winning, you’re happy.”
Happy? During one of Arizona’s runs late in the first half, McConnell seemed to have to fight to stop from giggling.
The Ducks were fun Wednesday because they took their 90-56 beating without going into a four-corners stall or applying some type of voodoo zone defense that would slow the game to a crawl.
But even on a night Arizona probably played its best game of the season, there’s caution that all of this fun comes at a cost.
The middle and bottom tiers of the Pac-12 are at historic lows, akin to the Pac-10 teams of the mid ‘80s, and it’s going to get to the point that even the finicky McKale Center bluebloods are likely to hope an opponent is better than it is.
Arizona’s strength-of-schedule quotient is going to take a beating the next six weeks.
Oregon arrived in Arizona with an RPI in the 70s — 77 according to the NCAA, 75 at ESPN and 76 on the Ken Pomeroy list — and the rest of the league isn’t any more appealing.
ESPN has Oregon State at 69, UCLA at 75, Colorado at 90, and Lord have mercy, the NCAA’s RPI has Arizona State at 117, which is ahead of Wazzu, Cal and USC.
The Ducks deployed three freshmen in the starting lineup and a bunch of shorter guys who looked at Kaleb Tarczewski and probably wondered “how’s the weather up there?”
Oops.
A lot of nice people are giving Oregon coach Dana Altman a break because the Ducks are without four significant pieces — Dominic Artis, Damyean Dotson, Ray Kasongo and Jaquan Lyle — Altman assumed would be the core of a contender.
Cry me a river.
It is Altman who put the Ducks in this fix by taking one-year transfers from Rice, Detroit, New Mexico and Iowa State instead of building with freshmen.
He became vulnerable when off-court issues fractured the entire roster.
If anyone has overcome player movement, it’s Sean Miller.
Arizona’s coach has lost a total of 29 seasons of eligibility from Derrick Williams, MoMo Jones, Josiah Turner, Kyryl Natyazhko, Daniel Bejarano, Angelo Chol, Sidiki Johnson, Grant Jerrett , Nick Johnson, Aaron Gordon, Craig Victor and Zach Peters.
That makes Oregon’s losses look like a bee sting.
Miller had a one year head start on Altman, who arrived at Oregon from Creighton in the spring of 2011, and to his credit joined Washington as one of only two Pac-12 teams that prefer to play fast.
When Altman gets “his guys” — if he is around long enough to get “his guys” — Oregon will be one of the year’s most anticipated games at McKale.
The Ducks invite you to run. And on Wednesday, they let Arizona shoot, too. The Wildcats made 59.3 percent of their shots, and many of them were barely contested.
It was just the third time in the Miller years that the Wildcats have hit 90 in regulation in a Pac-12 game. He didn’t bite when asked if playing a get-out-and-run team like Oregon was more enjoyable than, say, the tortoise-paced Oregon State Beavers, who will play at McKale on Friday in the first Revenge Game of the season.
“It depends on how good they are,” said Miller. “I won’t worry about the tempo; we have to adapt.”
One thing Miller probably liked was the makeup of the officiating crew.
The Pac-12 debuted two new refs, Rick Randall and Gerry Pollard, two Midwest guys who have spent most of the year working the Missouri Valley Conference. Both were NCAA tournament officials last season.
To its credit, the Pac-12 appears to be acting to correct its lack of refs who can capably work an important game. Last week’s 51-foul debacle at Stanford hasn’t been forgotten.
Randall, Pollard and Final Four ref Randy McCall whistled just 30 fouls Wednesday. Mostly, it was no harm, no foul, and the game flowed.
In the first month of the conference season, the Pac-12 featured eight reputable officials — McCall, Dick Cartmell, Mike Reed, Tony Padilla, Verne Harris, Chris Rastatter, Dave Hall and Gregory Nixon — giving each six league assignments. No one had more.
After that it filled in with a gang of not-ready-for-prime-time refs who filled the air with whistles and slowed many games to a walk.
On Wednesday, the Ducks ran, the refs got it right, and the Wildcats were Entertainment Inc.
Everybody but the Almighty Ducks went home happy.
