No More Tiers Formula

For the longest time, it was as if the Pacific 10 championship were kept locked in a safe.

But only Arizona, Stanford and UCLA knew the combination.

Oregon’s Ernie Kent, USC’s Henry Bibby and California’s Ben Braun were plotting to crack the code.

Last week, Oregon got there first.

Over the previous 16 years, the only team other than the powerful top three to win even a share of the Pac-10 title was Oregon State in 1990.

“UCLA, Stanford, Arizona, they were so dominant,” Kent said. “Bigger at all the positions. Stronger. More athletic. More skilled.”

While Kent and the rest of the conference’s second tier were working to bridge the talent gap, a dramatic thing happened.

Suddenly, there was an opening: NBA defections and graduation after last season left Arizona and Stanford weakened.

“Teams like Arizona, UCLA, Stanford that have those top, top players--if they go out early, it drops everybody back down together,” Bibby said.

That ushered in the wildest Pac-10 race in memory, with six teams in contention in the final week and a record six Pac-10 teams almost certainly on their way to the NCAA tournament.

It also set the stage for this week’s revival of the Pac-10 tournament, where the word upset will be rendered irrelevant in a field with six teams--maybe seven--with a legitimate chance to claim the conference’s automatic bid.

How did Oregon manage to win the regular-season title, and are the doors thrown open wide for years to come? Or will the familiar triumvirate return to the top next season?

Let’s start with this understanding: Oregon is very, very good.

The Ducks are ranked No. 9 in the nation and you can forget their reputation as a team that was great at McArthur Court but couldn’t win on the road.

When all was said and done, Oregon won at Arizona, USC and UCLA and lost in overtime at Stanford and double-overtime at Cal.

The Ducks have a player in Freddie Jones whose mind-blowing athleticism might be about to take viewers by storm if Oregon advances far in the NCAA tournament.

“He is the most gifted athlete, I think, in the country that people have really missed the boat on back East,” Kent said. “To see the things he has done has been incredible.... I’ve been in this a long time, and I’m still shaking my head.”

Combine Jones, a senior, with terrific point guard Luke Ridnour and versatile Luke Jackson--both sophomores--and the Ducks have a perimeter trio UCLA Coach Steve Lavin calls the best in the West.

They also have a complementary forward in Robert Johnson, as well as center Chris Christoffersen, the biggest player in the conference at 7 feet 3 and 305 pounds.

What Oregon did to reach the top was elegantly simple: Kent and his staff copied what has worked before.

“We stepped back and we looked at Stanford’s blueprint and Arizona’s blueprint,” he said.

Not so much UCLA’s, despite the Bruins’ success.

“UCLA’s had so much talent, they’re so gifted on the floor and everything, that they could afford to just go and play, because they were just so doggone good,” Kent said.

What Kent, a former Stanford assistant, saw when he studied Arizona and Stanford was a stable of big, skilled, versatile players that always seemed to replenish itself.

Instead of using a small forward inside, Arizona and Stanford were playing with big swingmen whose skills made them extraordinarily valuable, from the outside in.

Think of Casey Jacobsen at Stanford and Luke Walton at Arizona, or Mike Dunleavy at Duke.

“I remember Arizona when I first got here [in 1997], and Stanford too, they would just kill us because they could get from the wing to the paint, and you couldn’t stop them,” Kent said. “I would just say, wow, we’ve got to get that.

“They all had the ‘three’ man that was big--6-7. [Richard] Jefferson, [Ryan] Mendez, Jacobsen--they were good-sized, they were skilled, they could shoot, they were rebounders. They were always big at that position, and they always overmatched you at that spot.”

Jackson is the least talked about of Oregon’s perimeter trio, but he is that valuable 6-7 swingman--a shooter who can make the three-point shot, push the ball upcourt on Oregon’s relentless fastbreak, and rebound too.

That’s only one piece.

Kent likes his true big men big: There are two 7-footers redshirting in the Oregon program. Kent--who coached 7-foot-3 Brad Millard at St. Mary’s--is waiting for his next project player to pay off.

He couldn’t have gotten close on a player such as UCLA’s Dan Gadzuric out of high school, but Kent could sign Christoffersen--who is nowhere near as skilled, but has made more progress in four years.

But make no mistake, it’s those perimeter players who are the key to what Oregon does.

“They’ve got those three guys, specifically on the perimeter, that are very good,” Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery said. “One night, one guy gets numbers. The next guy another night. Any one of those three guys is capable of putting up pretty good numbers.”

There’s something else Kent identified at Arizona and Stanford.

“They all had that really good point guard,” he said.

Think Brevin Knight, Arthur Lee and Mike McDonald at Stanford. Think Mike Bibby, Jason Terry and Jason Gardner at Arizona.

Think Ridnour.

He wore down late in his freshman season. This season, he’s averaging 15 points and almost five assists a game and shooting 45% from three-point range.

“He was perfect for what we need,” Kent said. “The way we play our offensive scheme, the way we get up and down the floor, that point guard is the one who drives the machine, who gets you out and running.

“But the key to our system is versatility. Luke Jackson and Freddie Jones, they bring the ball up the floor 15% or 20% of the time. That way, we can rebound and we don’t have to find the point guard. We can take off down the floor quicker.”

Oregon has gotten this far. Now the question is whether the Ducks will stick around, or whether they’re just a flash in the pan.

They’ve got their coach. Kent, 46, came home to the school he led to a No. 7 ranking in 1977 as one of Oregon’s Kamikaze Kids, and he’s not the sort likely to leave if the Ducks make a postseason run and people come knocking.

They’ll lose Jones and Christoffersen after this season, but the “Two Lukes” are sophomores.

Kent understands it’s lightning in a bottle.

“It’s kind of scary--anyone could have won this thing,” he said.

If Jones didn’t make those game-winning shots against USC and UCLA last week, everyone might be talking about Bibby and his blueprint.

Bibby went out four years ago and found two winners from Westchester High: Brandon Granville is his savvy point guard, and David Bluthenthal is the 6-7 guy who can make a three-point shot, drive to the basket and rebound.

Then of course there’s power forward Sam Clancy, the Pac-10 player-of-the-year candidate.

But this was Oregon’s year. Whether the Ducks have enough to win the Pac-10 tournament too is another question. And next year?

“We still have to match the continuity of those other programs,” Kent said. “That’s winning multiple Pac-10 titles, going to multiple NCAA tournaments, going deep into those tournaments, Final Fours.

“But for right now this year, we’ve accomplished a stage. We’ve won that Pac-10 championship.”