Rush The Court

Over the years, college basketball seasons develop a rhythm of their own for me. There are the manic early days of the season when I’m scrambling around between many different channels and early season tournaments to get a feel for new teams and new players, all while trying to keep up with the stretch run in college football. December rolls around and the pace slows some with finals in time for the holidays and I watch fewer games more intently. The New Year brings a new flash of excitement as conference play starts. There’s a light schedule for Big Monday, then Tuesdays and Wednesdays bring an abundance of games before Thursday lightens up again and we all take Friday easy (usually) in preparation for the weekend. Saturday is always an overwhelming cavalcade of game after game from early morning to late night. Sunday is a light dessert. Then rinse and repeat. You get used to the schedule and begin to take the college basketball season for granted. It will always be like this, right?

And then some day you look up and another page on the calendar is gone and that shortest of months is nearing its end and – holy crap! This season is almost over! If it was midnight and I had a couple drinks in me, maybe I’d draw a parallel between a college basketball season and a life well lived. But it’s not. It’s 9:00 AM. And I’m already getting off track. You see, one of my favorite parts of a college basketball season begins this weekend: Senior Days. It’s a chance for programs and fans to pause for a moment in that busy and all-t00-fleeting season to say thanks to those guys who have paid their dues and made their way to the finish line of their collegiate eligibility. Back in the old days, that usually meant the end of a four-year career at one spot. These days, those seniors are a rarity; sometimes guys transfer three times; sometimes they bounce to a new school just for their final season. But in all cases, seniors are a special breed in college basketball. There’s a whole lot of water under the bridge by the time you get to that year. Games have changed; life has imparted lessons. Guys who came into school as bright-eyed brash freshmen have turned into grizzled, weathered veterans with the experiences that will serve them well as they head out into life.

In the Pac-12, by coincidence of schedule, Oregon spends the final two weeks of conference play away from the friendly dynamics of Matthew Knight Arena, meaning Senior Days in the Pac-12 begins when the Ducks host Utah tonight. And with that, Oregon will have a chance to celebrate four players: guard Anthony Piganelli, forward Tim Jensen, guard Jalil Abdul-Bassit and guard Joseph Young. Piganelli and Jensen have combined to play 29 minutes this season. Abdul-Bassit has emerged in his senior campaign as a terrific three-point threat. We wish all three of those guys a great Senior Day and a best of luck in the future. But we’re here to talk about Joseph Young.

Young is one of those guys we mentioned above who has not had the traditional four-years-in-one-place college career. He started at Houston, playing under a staff that included his father, Michael Young, but when his dad was essentially fired from the coaching staff by head coach James Dickey, Joseph went searching for a new home and wound up in Eugene. Now, just a personal note: I saw Young play a handful of times at Houston in those first couple years and, while I liked his shot, the consensus on him was that he was “just a shooter.” Sure, knocking in better than 40 percent of your nearly five threes attempted per game in your first two years will get you a reputation as a bomber. But it was clear in his first month at Oregon that, although he was definitely a fine shooter, there was a lot more to his game than just standing in the corner knocking in all those threes. Over the past two seasons, he has proven to be a threat both from both deep and off the bounce, a capable passer, a smart defender and a hard-nosed rebounder for a slight guard . Let’s just jump into some numbers:

• 92.6% – Young’s free throw percentage as a senior.
• 1,182 – Young’s total number of points in his two-year career at Oregon, only nine points away from second place on the two-year scoring list at Oregon. And with at least five games remaining, Young is bound to jump over Terrell Brandon’s mark of 1,263 points, the most points scored in a two-year span at Oregon.
• 1/6 – That one represents Young. That six represents the total number of active players who have scored more than 2,000 points in their careers to this point. The other five are BYU’s Tyler Haws, Auburn’s Antoine Mason, Stanford’s Chasson Randle, St. John’s D’Angelo Harrison and San Diego’s Johnny Dee.
• 267 – The number of threes Young has made in his four-year career. Just to put into perspective how three-point crazy the sport has become, Young’s impressive number doesn’t come anywhere near the NCAA record of 504 from Travis Bader or the Pac-12 record of 342 from Salim Stoudamire.
• 2 – The number of NCAA Tournaments that Young hopes to have competed in by the time his career officially ends.

There’s no doubt that there are a seemingly never-ending supply of numbers and stats to show the greatness that has been Young’s on-court college career. Heck, I spent a couple thousand words earlier this year doing much the same thing. But it is that last number directly above that Young cares about right now. Earlier this week, he went so far as to guarantee that his team would make the NCAA Tournament this season. And with the Ducks sitting squarely on the bubble, that means that he’ll need to lead his team on an excellent run down the stretch. And while that will include pressure to win games on the road in the team’s final three games, it all starts with the team’s Senior Day game versus Utah. Go out and get that win against a team with a top 10 RPI and the Ducks will have gone a long way toward punching that ticket, an accomplishment that will resonate most cleanly with Oregon fans when they remember Young.

It hasn’t been easy to be an Oregon basketball fan over the past year given the sexual assault accusations that resulted in three players being dismissed from the university. The fact that Young was at least tangentially involved in that situation (to be clear, he was never charged with or even accused of having committed any crime of any sort) will always remain a part of his biography at Oregon, a smudge that can leave a sour taste in the mouths of many fans. But his teams on the court — both this year and last — have been immensely fun to watch: a group of castaways playing a fun style of largely competitive ball (with games against Arizona this year a significant but understandable exception). When all is said and done with Young’s career in Eugene, he may not earn a spot among the most beloved Ducks ever, but if he can sneak his team into the NCAA Tournament once again he’ll have a strong argument for the best back-to-back seasons in Oregon basketball history.