Ducks Welcome Kent, Cougars to MKA
By Rob Moseley
Editor, GoDucks.com
With his next victory, Oregon coach Dana Altman will guarantee a fifth straight winning season for the Ducks, something that hasn’t happened for the program in nearly 40 years. It was last accomplished by the “Kamikaze Kids” from 1973-78; how ironic, then, that Altman’s first chance to clinch a winning record this season will come against one of those very same “Kamikaze Kids.”
Ernie Kent spent 17 years on the Oregon bench, four as a player for the Ducks in the “Kamikaze Kids” era, and 13 more as UO coach from 1997-2010. He’ll be back on the UO sideline Sunday, but at the other end of the court.
Kent is now first-year coach of the Washington State Cougars, who play in Matthew Knight Arena on Sunday (4 p.m., Pac-12 Networks). It’s a critical matchup for sorting things out in the middle of the Pac-12 Conference, further flavored by emotions for Kent and fans who watched him in green and yellow over the years.
Kent is on the WSU bench after working for the Pac-12 Network prior to this season. “When I took this job, he was great to me,” Altman said. “He’s been great to me when he was working for the Pac-12 Network, always really generous with his comments. So I’ve got nothing but great respect and great feelings for Ernie. He was good to me in a tough situation, showed a lot of class. And he’s done a hell of a job this year.”
Kent’s Cougars are 10-12 overall and 4-6 in Pac-12 play, after dropping a game at Oregon State on Thursday. That vaulted the Beavers to 6-4, in a four-way tie with Oregon, Stanford and UCLA for third place in the conference.
So there’s much more than emotion on the line for Kent on Sunday afternoon.
Given that Sunday afternoon tipoff, Kent had one more day to spend back in the Willamette Valley than in a typical week. Prior to the trip, though, he wasn’t making many social plans. “It becomes a business trip for us,” Kent said Tuesday, prior to the start of the Cougars’ road trip Thursday at Oregon State.
“There’s not a lot of seeing people that I need to do, and will do,” said Kent, who twice led the Ducks to the Elite Eight as head coach. “I’ll spend as much time as I normally do with our team, because they need to understand it’s business as usual. I can always come back in the spring time and be a lot more relaxed. Right now, we’ve got two games that are going to take all my attention.”
Oregon comes into Sunday having won four of five, with Joseph Young having hit game-winning shots each of the last two times out. Young scored 32 points in Wednesday’s win over Washington, matching the season-high he set in the Ducks’ overtime loss at WSU the first time they met, Jan. 15 in Pullman, Wash.
That was the Cougars’ third straight win at the time. They’ve had just one victory since, though it came against the Cardinal, a team Altman believes is worthy of an NCAA Tournament berth.
Altman continues to harp on defensive inconsistency by the Ducks, something they overcame to win Wednesday despite .566 shooting by the Huskies. The UO coach said zone defenses have given WSU trouble this season, “but our zone hasn’t been very effective against many people,” he added. “We’re just going to have to guard them and do a better job than we did last time.”
That’s the sort of X-and-O element to Sunday’s matchup Kent was trying to focus on earlier this week, as he approached his return to the Willamette Valley for the first time since he last coached at Oregon.
“It’ll be a different set of emotions,” Kent said. “But once the game gets going, it becomes just another game, where you have to do the things you need to do to give your guys the opportunity to be successful. Hopefully you play well, it becomes a chess match as games do, and you really get lost in the game.”
