Despite the cold weather and icy roads, plenty of fans made it out for the Oregon Ducks’ Saturday evening game against Cal. The Golden Bears sit near the bottom of the Pac-12, but at one point the Ducks found themselves trailing by 18 with their perfect conference record on the line. But near the end of the first half, the Ducks crawled their way back into the game, and they closed out the win in the second half for an 80-73 finish.
16 games into the season, the state of Oregon men’s basketball is better than anyone could’ve predicted. The Ducks are 13-3 overall and are 5-0 in conference play — first in the Pac-12. And, Oregon has done most of this without N’Faly Dante and Nate Bittle — their two best big men — who’ve been injured.
Twice a week, Joe Lunardi of ESPN updates his predictions for the 68-team field in March Madness, which is called Bracketology. For a while, the Ducks were omitted from Lunardi’s Bracketology despite their early success. In the most recent update, the Ducks are ranked as a 10-seed, hypothetically facing Colorado State (a 7-seed) in the first round.
Oregon is one of three Pac-12 teams in Tuesday’s Bracketology, Utah and Arizona being the other two. The Wildcats are ranked as a 2-seed and the Utes are an 8-seed. Both schools have worse conference records than the Ducks, but their non-conference strength of schedule is what pulls their ranking above Oregon.
Oregon has an important stretch ahead of them on their schedule. On Thursday they’ll head to Boulder, Colorado, facing off against the Buffaloes, and on Sunday they’ll visit the Utah Utes. If the Ducks can pick up road wins against the Utes and the Buffs — two of the best teams in the Pac-12 — their ranking will fly up, and they’ll likely find themselves in the Top 25.
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