Flash Point
Growing up in Blaine, Wash., Luke Ridnour carried a basketball wherever he went--to school, to the store, to the movies, even to bed.
So if it was no real surprise when the hoops junkie showed up for a date toting one, that didn’t mean the young lady liked having a basketball as a chaperon. The date ended quickly, not that Ridnour minded. He already had his first love cradled in his arms.
“If they don’t like basketball, I can’t date them,” Ridnour said with a sly grin. “It’s part of me and it’s part of what I’ve always been about.”
And that’s just fine with the Oregon fans, who have developed a love affair of their own with the flashy, play-making sophomore point guard. In Oregon’s first Sweet 16 appearance since the Eisenhower administration, Ridnour is leading the Ducks’ entertaining “Quack Attack” to national prominence. Oregon (25-8), second-seeded in the Midwest Regional, will play sixth-seeded Texas (22-11) Friday in Madison, Wis.
If the Ducks’ high-octane offense is a Porsche, then the 6-foot-2, 165-pound ballhandler extraordinaire has the keys.
Oregon began tournament play averaging 85.9 points, third nationally, and Ridnour gets the running game going, wowing the crowd and opponents with his whip-like passes around the perimeter and no-look, behind-the-back bounce passes in transition.
The spectacular yet steady Ridnour has been compared to John Stockton of the Utah Jazz and Jason Williams of the Memphis Grizzlies, but the Oregon floor general prefers the late “Pistol” Pete Maravich.
“He just had that flair,” said Ridnour, who studies videos of Maravich. “You can really get the crowd involved when you make a good play.”
Ridnour made plenty of them in the Ducks’ victories over Montana and Wake Forest last weekend in Sacramento, their first NCAA tournament victories since 1960.
He scored 46 points against the Grizzlies and Demon Deacons, going for a career-high 28 against Wake Forest with a career-best seven three-point baskets. He also had five assists and six turnovers in the two games.
“We just have so much fun out there,” said Duck small forward Luke Jackson, who shares a house with Ridnour and teammates Jay Anderson and James Davis.
“Sometimes he’ll make a great play and that just energizes our team. You know we love to run and get it out on the floor, and he gets us going by doing that.”
But it wasn’t always fun and games for Ridnour in an Oregon uniform.
A prep All-American whose father, Rob, was his coach at Blaine High, Ridnour was recruited by Utah, Kentucky, Gonzaga and Washington before choosing Oregon. His high school team had won consecutive state titles and gone a combined 97-11, so when the Ducks had an uninspiring 14-14 season last year, he considered transferring.
But the Pacific 10 Conference freshman of the year stuck it out and, with most of the Ducks remaining in Eugene for the summer, he coordinated spirited scrimmages and workouts at McArthur Court that often lasted until 2 a.m.
The extra work paid off for Ridnour and the other Ducks, who, after being picked to finish sixth, claimed their first outright conference championship since the 1939 Tall Firs won the first NCAA tournament.
Ridnour has more than doubled his scoring average, from 7.4 points as a freshman to 15.6 points, and his assists-to-turnovers ratio has improved, from 1.58 to 1.71.
With 164 assists, Ridnour is 20 behind the school’s single-season leader, Ron Lee. Having knocked down 86 three-point baskets this season, Ridnour, who’s shooting 44.6% from three-point territory, is nine from passing the school’s single-season record holder, Orlando Williams.
Ridnour’s proficiency from beyond the arc is a major reason Oregon has made a Pacific 10-record 287 three-pointers, eclipsing Arizona’s 8-year-old single-season mark of 279.
Said Oregon senior shooting guard Frederick Jones, “He knows the game and I think that’s what sets him apart from all the other guards. I’ve had a lot of guards that I’ve played with that are very talented and can handle the ball and do a lot of different things. But I’m not sure any of them understood the game the way Luke does.”
But Ridnour, Jones said, is not all flash. There’s some ferocity behind his Howdy Doody face.
“He has that toughness to him, that if you’re not helping him out, he’s going to let you know,” Jones said. “He doesn’t want to be the highlight of the game. He wants to have everyone involved and get everything going.”
You might think that being Ridnour’s coach could be a daily lesson in stress management, that watching him take chances with the ball before making spectacular plays would be both exasperating and satisfying.
“It’s fun. It’s not maddening at all,” said Oregon Coach Ernie Kent. “I wish I could have played that way. I enjoy watching him play but, unfortunately for me, I have to go home and watch it on TV to really appreciate how good that guy is.”
Kent, who had an inkling as to what kind of gym rat he had on his hands when Ridnour stepped off the plane for his recruiting visit carrying a basketball, has rewarded the creative Ridnour by giving him additional freedoms on the court.
“He allows me to do some flashy things most of the time,” Ridnour said. “Well, as long as it’s not too out of control.
“Once you build his trust, you can do things and if you still produce, he’ll let you just play and express yourself on the court. It’s just up-and-down fun basketball, and I think that’s what any basketball player in this day and age wants to do, just run and play and have fun. Truly, you just get to express yourself on the court and that’s what Coach Kent preaches and lets you do.”