Kenny Ocker (@KennyOcker) is a national columnist for Rush The Court.

The most painful moment of Oregon’s four-game losing streak was prescient. Trailing Stanford 82-80 with just four seconds left earlier this month, the Ducks’ Dominic Artis grabbed a rebound from a missed free throw and streaked down the garishly painted Matthew Knight Arena court. Driving left, Artis leaned back to his right and attempted a finger-roll layup, but it bounced off the rim as time expired, and the Ducks fell by two points, their two-game hiccup turning into a four-game problem. After an undefeated 13-0 start to its season and attaining a top-10 ranking in the Associated Press poll, Oregon has had the wheels fall right off its proverbial cart, plummeting from national view in the span of about two weeks. Much of the blame has been directed at the Ducks’ interior defense, but another factor plays into their poor Pac-12 play: the return of Artis, the sophomore point guard who missed the first nine games of the season for selling team apparel online.

Oregon point guard Dominic Artis has only scored in double figures three times in the last calendar year. (AP)

The Oakland, California, native, had a strong start to his freshman campaign last season, tallying an offensive rating above 120 in seven of the 19 games he started and played before missing a month of the season with a foot injury. But since that injury, Artis’ offense has been missing in action. He only had one game (out of nine) in the rest of 2013 in which he played more than half of the minutes with offensive ratings above average, and this season has been no better, with only three above-average performances out of eight games played (including just one in Oregon’s four consecutive losses). Put more succinctly: Artis has had a total of three games in which he scored in double-figures in 17 games since returning from injury last season; he had 14 in the 19 prior to getting hurt.

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Kenny Ocker is an RTC contributor.  He was in Eugene for Games Two and Three of this week’s College Basketball Invitational between Creighton and Oregon.

The Ducks Delivered In the CBI

When people talk about March Madness, the College Basketball Invitational is probably about the furthest thing from basketball fans’ collective conscience. Don’t let that fool you, however. The third-rate tournament is a valuable source of experience for teams, and it allows players to hang on just a little bit longer. Without the National Invitation Tournament’s strict standards of only extending bids to teams with above-.500 records, the CBI ends up with the third pick of postseason teams. Though the teams invited aren’t NCAA Tournament-quality, that doesn’t mean they’re not quality teams. For instance, the Creighton Bluejays are 23-16 and the Oregon Ducks are 21-18.  “We did win 20 games, which I know we had to play a lot to get to 20, but we did win 20 games, so winning breeds winning,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said after Wednesday’s game. “Hopefully, it will help us down the road. We’ve got a long ways to go with our program, we’re not kidding anybody, but at least guys are playing hard.”

While both teams have been able to pad their records with wins in the tournament, the biggest impact the CBI has on college basketball is giving valuable practice time and postseason experience for growing teams. Creighton’s Greg McDermott and Oregon’s Altman are both first-year coaches at their programs (Altman, incidentally, came to Eugene from Creighton after 16 seasons in Omaha), and the two-plus weeks of meaningful practices both coaches have had with their teams will certainly make an impact next season. Incidentally, the tournament’s last three champions (including 2011) were in their first years at their schools. The six 2010 CBI teams in this year’s NCAA Tournament this season have gone 6-16 so far, compared with NIT teams going 7-32 and CollegeInsiders.com Tournament teams going 1-16. This is especially emphasized in the fairytale Final Four run of Virginia Commonwealth, which won the CBI in 2010.  “It’s not the NCAA Tournament. It’s not the NIT,” Altman said after Wednesday’s game. “We’ve got a long ways to go to elevate our program there, but it’s an opportunity to play.”

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