Young Nears Career Milestone As New-Look Huskies Visit Wednesday
By Rob Moseley
Editor, GoDucks.com
Eight points and seven feet separated Oregon and Washington the last time the two met, when UW beat the Ducks 85-77 in Seattle on Jan. 18.
The two meet again Wednesday at Matthew Knight Arena (6 p.m., ESPN2), where the Huskies enter their second week since the dismissal of 7-footer Robert Upshaw. The nation’s leading shot blocker at the time of his dismissal, Upshaw had 13 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks against Oregon in January; without Upshaw’s seven feet clogging the lane, the Ducks hope to make up that eight-point deficit this time out.
“They’ve got really good athletes, a great point guard in (Nigel Williams-Goss), so we’ll have our hands full,” said UO coach Dana Altman, who expects the Huskies to be much more up-tempo without Upshaw. “It’s just a different style, but they score a lot of points. ...
“We didn’t do a very good job of attacking them last time. We took a lot of jump shots; we hit ?em in the first half, didn’t shoot quite as well in the second. We’ve got to do a better job of taking it to the basket, no doubt.”
The Ducks (15-7, 5-4 Pac-12) have won three of four since losing to the Huskies (14-7, 3-6), who have dropped three of four since, including both games without Upshaw last week. Oregon shot 30 three-pointers against UW in Seattle, making 11, and intends to take a more aggressive mentality Wednesday without the presence of Upshaw clogging the middle.
“We just need to start with a driving, attack mentality,” UO senior guard Joseph Young said. “Upshaw not being there, we've got to take advantage of points in the paint. I know I can get to the paint, and then it's about making the right plays; if I have guys collapse on me, see Elgin (Cook), see Jalil (Abdul-Bassit).”
Young and Abdul-Bassit started together in the backcourt for Oregon last time out, an overtime victory at Arizona State. It was the first game this season in which neither freshman point guard, Casey Benson or Ahmaad Rorie, was in the starting lineup.
That duo ended up combining to play 38 of 45 minutes, but Young assumed ballhandling duties when they weren’t on the floor ? as he has for stretches of most games this season ? and responded with seven assists, one off his season high. Entering Wednesday’s game against UW, Young leads the Ducks with 79 assists this season.
Young said he’s comfortable playing the point, after working on his ballhandling skills at a summer camp hosted by LeBron James. The versatility should help Young’s NBA draft stock, but at the moment it’s more about helping the Ducks get bigger for the sake of rebounding and defense.
“He gives us a little more size; the reason we went to it was to try to help our rebounding,” Altman said. “We got outrebound so bad against Arizona, and our guards weren’t going as good. ... We just went a little bigger, trying to see if Jalil could get us a few rebounds.”
The move worked, to some extent. After Arizona outrebounded the Ducks 34-20, the Sun Devils did so by just 39-34.
The expanded role hasn’t diminished Young’s abilities as a scorer. He hit the game-winning shot in overtime at ASU, and is second in the Pac-12 with 18.7 points per game entering this week.
Thus, with 1,970 career points Young is on pace to surpass 2,000 for his career this week, which concludes for the Ducks on Sunday against Washington State. Young would become just the fifth active NCAA player to reach 2,000 points in his career, having passed 1,000 in his two seasons at Oregon two weeks ago.
“I can't even relate to that; I think I scored 20 in my career,” Altman joked. “It's really a milestone, and I'm happy for him. Obviously he's meant a great deal to our program, and I want him to have a good February here, and good March, and finish strong.”
Young, who began his career at Houston before transferring to Oregon, downplayed the significance of the 2,000-point milestone.
“I'm just playing the game,” Young said. “It's coming up, but I really can’t say anything. It was a lot of work put in. Just continuing to lead my team, that's the important thing.”
