Dunigan

[oregontrack]

Yeah, that's a myth that people started saying/believing when they wanted Kent fired.

Look, I was on the fire-Ernie bandwagon before almost anyone (back in 2003, I believe, a mere season after our first Elite Eight trip) but we can probably drop some of the rhetoric we all got so used to saying when we wanted him fired. The big man argument was centered around a fringe talent in Ray Schafer, and a highly regarded but poor match in Mitch Platt.

[buckmarkduck]

Platt was decent as a FR and regressed yearly, and remember we also had different assistant coaches with the first elite 8 group and the Lukes where basically coaches themselves. After the assistant went to Boise our big men play declined.

[woundedknees]

Having watched the parade of decent bigs flow through several other PAC10 programs, and in several cases be dominant players, I find it hard to swallow the idea that Oregon utilized or developed the talent that flowed through here effectively.

The system was not designed, or adjusted, to take decent advantage of the middle.

[Boom]

Platt was decent as a FR and regressed yearly, and remember we also had different assistant coaches with the first elite 8 group and the Lukes where basically coaches themselves. After the assistant went to Boise our big men play declined.

Mitch Platt wasn't really that great... marginal athlete with lingering injury issues.

How do you explain Maarty Luenen & Jovan Catron?

[Boom]

Having watched the parade of decent bigs flow through several other PAC10 programs, and in several cases be dominant players, I find it hard to swallow the idea that Oregon utilized or developed the talent that flowed through here effectively.

The system was not designed, or adjusted, to take decent advantage of the middle.

You don't design a system around guys like Ray Shafer, Mitch Platt, Adam Zahn, and Chris Christoffersen.

You build it around guys like Aaron Brooks, Lukes, Fred Jones, & Malik Hairston.

[oregontrack]

Platt was decent as a FR and regressed yearly, and remember we also had different assistant coaches with the first elite 8 group and the Lukes where basically coaches themselves. After the assistant went to Boise our big men play declined.

I don't know if Platt regressed so much as he just stopped getting time because he didn't fit whatever it was that Ernie was trying to do offensively. We played him as a true freshman and he was okay, but he lumbered up and down the court and disrupted the flow of a team that generally tried to get out and run. He got about 18 minutes/game as a freshman. He went down to 13 as a sophomore even though he actually produced better. He got hurt the year after and redshirted (I'm pretty sure?) and never averaged more than 7 a game after that. He just couldn't move. I don't think he 'got worse' in a basketball sense, his body just failed him.

The Lukes did not coach themselves. I believe this to be another misnomer.

I don't know (seriously, I'm not sure) how much Greg Graham had to do with our big men before he went to coach Boise, but I would say our big men actually improved after the first Elite Eight year. Ian Crosswhite was a lazy son of a bitch with a pretty chronic drug problem, but they got a lot out of him before they had to kick him off the team. He was pretty good as a freshman, and he had a very nice/much improved sophomore year. Maarty Leunen went from a fringe player his freshman year to one of the Pac-10's best big men by the time he was a senior. Dunigan was okay as a freshman, and better as a sophomore, despite some well-documented laziness in the work-ethic department.

Platt's been covered, Schafer was a fringe 2-star kid who was never that good to begin with. Adam Zahn was never a basketball player.

[buckmarkduck]

Platt was decent as a FR and regressed yearly, and remember we also had different assistant coaches with the first elite 8 group and the Lukes where basically coaches themselves. After the assistant went to Boise our big men play declined.

Mitch Platt wasn't really that great... marginal athlete with lingering injury issues.

How do you explain Maarty Luenen & Jovan Catron?

Luenen was a tweener who should have played 3 but because of terrible post play he was forced down low. If he had played the right spot he could have been a 17 a game player. Catron? You do remember him 2 years ago right? I explain Catron that he had a very good coach his 1 great year.