Goodbye Ernie?

Another dissapointing Men's basketball season at the University of Oregon will soon be over. Anything short of winning the Pac 10 tournament should result in head coach Ernie Kent losing his job. I could probably stay up all night listing all the reasons coach Kent should be shown the door but Im not going to bore you with that. I'll just give you a couple reasons why I think a change is needed.

In his nine seasons (that includes this year) at Oregon, the Ducks have made the NCAA tournament just three times. With the resources that the Athletic department has, I see no reason why the Ducks can't be playing in the NCAA tournament almost every year. Now I understand Oregon is not Kansas, Duke, U Conn or even Arizona but three tournament appearences in nine years is pathetic.

Since the elite 8 run of 2002 the performance of this team has been in a steady declince. In 2001-2002 they went and 26-9 overall and 14-4 in conference, in 02-03 they went 23-10 and 10-8, 18-13 and 9-9 in 03-04 and 14-13 and 6-12 in 04-05. With a win over Oregon State on Saturday they'll finish 13-16 and 8-10 in conference. The slight in improvement in the conference record can be attributed to the Pac 10 being a very weak conference this year. Of their twelve wins this year only came against teams with a winning record (USC, Arizona and Pacific). I look at these numbers and I see a disturbing trend. I've heard several people argue that they lost three players to NBA from the 2002 team and that's why their record has declined. Good programs are able to replace talent on yearly basis and continue to play at high level.

I've got a bunch of other reasons that I can share with you at a later date. I sincerely wish Ernie Kent the best on all of his future endeavors, I just hope none of them are at the University of Oregon.