[imgl]http://www.justbball.com/images/avatars/ncaapr.jpg[/imgl]Check out this week?s Top 25 College Teams in JBB?s NCAA Rankings. There?s a new unanimous #1 team in the nation, and the Pac-10 continues to show that they?re the top conference in America, with five ranked teams, including two of the top three teams in the nation. Which bubble teams cracked this week?s Top 25? Click here to find out. Read on: NCAA Power Rankings (Week 10)
As a Duck fan...It's nice to see Oregon getting a little respect ... However...All will be for naught if the Ducks don't handle business this week against the Cardinal and the Bears... As a "snapshot" for the week...rankings are nice for "the present-term"...But as expressed above...It's the numbers at the end of the season that matter most...Oregon historically hasn't been a Top-10 team very often...perhaps last time being 2003(after their Elite-8 run the previous season)? The fact is...Oregon is just a few points away from still being undefeated or having three or four losses on the year... Last year had Oregon losing countless games by similar margins...Fortunately the ball has "dropped" for them this season... Oregon's road wins over Georgetown and Arizona are huge for the team's morale...as Oregon has struggled a bit in the "true" road games they've played this year... The Ducks still have a lot of road games left including a four-game stretch involving the Washington schools and the S. Cal schools after this week's home games(Geeze what a gauntlet the PAC-10 schedule is!!!)... The Ducks will have to do everything in their power to prevent becoming another Top-10 casualty in the coming weeks...Having the Defensive/Rebounding skills of Malik back should help a lot... Could Oregon make a Final Four appearance this year?...Well...Theyre gonna have to dig pretty deep and actually handle the teams like Kansas(2002) to get there...If the tourney games were held at Mac Court...well then the probability would be high ... As a fan...I'll be backing 'em up the whole way... GO DUCKS!!!
What I like about Oregon is their ability to play successfully in any style of basketball. They can play run and gun basketball, or they can slow it down and run halfcourt sets to win. The Ducks don't take games off, so I expect them to beat Cal and Stanford. Both those teams struggle with consistency, Cal because of injury, and Stanford because of youth. Cal should be a cake walk for the Ducks, because they don't have the offensive fire power to compete, and they live and die with Ubaka's jumpshot. Aaron Brooks is going to be a handful for Ubaka, and it's going to lead to Ubaka forcing his offense, and when does that Cal generally gets blown out. Stanford will present more of a challenge, because of their size. The Lopez Twins are finally on the court together, and have dominated stretches of games. It's going to be interesting to see how the Ducks handle this team, because the Lopez Twins run the court fairly well for big men, and Aaron Goods is an explosive scorer for the Cardinal. So far this season Stanford has struggled against teams who can run. When Stanford has to score 80 points against a quality team, they come out on the losing end.
