Mississippi St. 76 - Oregon 69

Malik Hairston scored 22 points followed by Tajuan Porter with 18 and Maarty Leunen's 13. But it wasn't enough to stop Charles Rhode's career high 34 points and the Bulldogs went on to end the Ducks season.

As happened so often this year, Oregon controlled the first half but failed to seal the deal in the second. Early in the 2nd half Oregon led by 13 points but couldn't buy a basket for the last 15 minutes of the game.

The question now is, can Ernie keep his job? There is a lot of talk about his future with Oregon. Time will tell. Five months until football.

GO DUCKS!

Jedi Mind Trick

Jon Stewart shares his take on the Bear Stearns collapse, Bush and Jim Cramer from CNBC. Great stuff. Watch it if you have a few minutes.

Tiger Wins on 72nd hole

Chuck and I were watching this live. He is simply amazing. After 2 rounds he was in 20th place and 7 shots out of the lead. Saturday he was tied with 5 others for the lead. Then he drains a downhill, left to right putt from 25 feet on the 72nd hole to win it by one over Bart Bryant. Fun to watch.

Oregon goes Dancin'

Surprise, surprise. The Ducks got invited, much to my surprise, and the seeding wasn't that bad, until they get to the 2nd round anyway (if they make it past the first.)

I know that doesn't sound too positive but, they haven't been exactly stellar this year. It will be fun to see if they make it by Mississippi St. on Friday. Time and place to be determined later. **They will be playing at Little Rock, Arkansas. The game is at 4:25pm local time on Friday and is being broadcast live on CBS.

GO DUCKS!

Electric Sheep

I thought I would share my latest find. It is mesmerizing to watch it in action (play the sample movie above.) You will need a high speed internet connection (always on) to run this program.

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world. It can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

Anyone watching one of these computers may vote for their favorite animations using the keyboard. The more popular sheep live longer and reproduce according to a genetic algorithm with mutation and cross-over. Hence the flock evolves to please its global audience. You can also design your own sheep and submit them to the gene pool.

You may take a tour of the sheep web site and related documents. Download the program here.

Enjoy!

One and done...

Tajuan Porter scored 17 of his 20 points in the second half, and Malik Hairston (pictured) had 20 points and seven rebounds for Oregon (18-13), whose final hope for an NCAA tournament berth might have ended with a 75-70 loss to Washington St. Maarty Leunen added 11 points and six rebounds for the sixth-seeded Ducks.

This loss will make it easier to fill out my bracket sheet for the upcoming, 2nd annual, bracketology tournament I am hosting. If you didn't receive an invite and would like to join us send me an email.

It is still possible the Ducks might make the NIT but I know what you're thinking, who cares. Look at the bright side, we only have a little over 5 months before football season.

GO DUCKS!

Oregon 78 - Arizona 69

The Ducks had another solid game last night. Just in time to secure a tie for 5th place in the league and earn a first round bye in the Pac-10 tournament which start on Thursday.

Tajuan Porter (pictured) had 24 points and Bryce Taylor added 14. Maarty Leunen and Malik Hairston each had 12 points and Joevan Catron had 10 points and 12 rebounds for the Ducks.

The Ducks out-rebounded the Wildcats 34-23 and shot 58% from the field. Oregon will open the Pac-10 tournament as the sixth seed and play No. 3 seed Washington State in the quarterfinals on Thursday.

I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but the Ducks seem to be playing with more confidence during this little mini-hot streak. If they continue to play to their strengths we could even see a little post season action.

GO DUCKS

Oregon 67 - Arizona St. 61

Oregon's outside chance at making the Big Dance field improved with last nights win over the Sun Devils at Mac Court.

Malik Hairston scored 19 points and Oregon hit eight free throws in the final minute as the Ducks held on to beat Arizona State 67-61 Thursday.

Tajuan Porter added 12 points and Maarty Leunen had 10 points and nine rebounds for the Ducks (17-12, 8-9), who moved into a three-way tie for fifth-place in the Pac-10 with the Sun Devils (18-11) and Arizona (18-12). The Ducks and Wildcats face each other in the regular-season finale on Saturday.

The Ducks had a balanced attack last night, won the turnover battle and shot better from the field and free throw line. You add up all those factors and you will usually come away with a victory.

GO DUCKS!

Photos from Sunday

Here is a teaser photo of Noah from Sunday. I met Chris, Jolene, Jake & Max at Chuck & Suzi's this last Sunday. Chris & family were headed south on their big journey. I took a few pictures of everyone and posted them over at Flickr. If you get the chance, check them out.

Oregon St. 68 - Oregon 80

Maarty Leunen (pictured) had a career-high 32 points and Oregon ended the game on a 12-3 run as the Ducks beat Oregon State 80-68 on Sunday.

Leunen scored 23 points and hit six of his seven 3-pointers in the second half for Oregon (16-12, 7-9 Pacific-10 Conference) in the 329th meeting between the schools, the most in college basketball.

Bryce Taylor had 13 points along with 14 from Longmire off the bench.

The regular season will come to an end this week when the two Arizona teams come to Eugene to take on the Ducks. Thursday at 5:30 pm against ASU and Saturday at 7:30 pm we take on Arizona.

GO DUCKS!