A day after claiming the Pac-12 tournament title, Oregon men’s basketball earned a No. 1 seed for the West region in the upcoming 2016 NCAA Tournament.
It is the first time the Ducks have earned a No. 1 seed in their history. The previous high for the program was as a No. 2 seed in 2002. Oregon reached the Elite Eight that year.
Oregon’s path will start in Spokane, Washington Friday against the winner of Holy Cross and Southern’s game. If the Ducks were to win Friday, they would play either No. 8 seed Saint Joseph’s or No. 9 Cincinnati.
“It was exciting for all of us,” Dwayne Benjamin said after learning the team got a one seed.
The Ducks’ region includes No. 2 seed Oklahoma, No. 3 Texas A&M, No. 4 Duke and No. 5 Baylor.
West:
1 Oregon
2 OU
3 A&M
4 Duke
5 Baylor
6 Texas
7 OSU
8 St. Joe’s
9 Cincy
10 VCU
11 UNI
12 Yale
13 UNC-W
14 GB
15 CSBU
16 H.C./Southern— SI College Hoops (@si_ncaabb) March 13, 2016
The Ducks enter the big dance as one of the hottest teams in the country. They are currently on an eight-game winning streak and own both the Pac-12 regular season and tournament title. Their resume also includes a No. 2 ranked RPI and seven wins over the teams listed in the AP Top 25.
But, none of it seemed to carry as much weight as the Ducks’ surge to end the season in Las Vegas, which was capped by a 31-point win over No. 12 Utah Saturday night. It prompted Chris Boucher to state the obvious in the locker room afterwards.
“When we work together, we can do great things,” said Boucher, who in addition to Elgin Cook, Tyler Dorsey and Dillon Brooks, earned Pac-12 All-Tournament team.
The performance also appeared to further support the notion that Oregon had one of the better track records in the nation, and calls for the Ducks to be a No. 1 seed came flying in via social media Saturday night. The NCAA Tournament Committee then showed it agreed with those arguments by granting the Ducks a No. 1 seed Sunday.
With the top seed of a region comes a much larger target than the Ducks may be used to.
“That just means everybody wants to get the upset so we just got play harder and be more dialed in,” Benjamin said.
Elgin Cook, who won the Pac-12 Tournament MVP this weekend, added that it’s a “huge target.”
“Numbers don’t mean anything, we still got to come in and play,” Cook said.
Either Holy Cross (Patriot League champion) or Southern (SWAC champion) will be the Ducks’ first opponent. In addition, the Ducks’ group features Atlantic 10 champion Saint Joseph’s and at-large bid Cincinnati, both of which could pose certain threats to Oregon’s path.
Saint Joseph’s DeAndre Bembry is viewed as an NBA talent. The junior forward is averaging about 17 points and eight rebounds per game, and scored 30 in the Hawks’ win over VCU Sunday to claim the conference’s automatic bid. Cincinnati offers a balanced lineup that has four players averaging double figures. Junior Troy Caupin may be the most lethal threat for the Bearcats. The junior scored 37 and hauled in 10 rebounds in Cincinnati’s loss to Connecticut Friday.
“I know how athletic and talented both those teams are,” head coach Dana Altman said. “Got to focus on one game a time so we’ll spend a lot of time just getting ready for Friday.”
This marks the fourth consecutive year the Ducks are in the NCAA Tournament. Oregon has been bounced by Wisconsin in the second round the last two years. This will be the first time Oregon will be favored in both the first and second round match-ups, though.
Oregon is just the third team in the past 10 years to start the year unranked, but become a No. 1 seed by March, according to Harvard Sports.
Oregon is the 3rd team in the past 10 years to go from unranked to 1 seed. The other 2 (MSU ’12, Cuse ’10) got knocked out in the Sweet 16
— HSAC (@Harvard_Sports) March 13, 2016
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