By John Sleeper
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – The stats are impressive enough.
Oregon point guard Luke Ridnour is among the Pacific-10 Conference leaders in assists (4.89 a game), scoring (13.9), 3-pointers (43), 3-point percentage (46.7 percent), free-throw percentage (85.5 percent) and assist/turnover ratio (2.00).
“He’s right up there with the best point guards in the league,” said Washington coach Bob Bender, whose team faces Oregon tonight at Hec Edmundson Pavilion. “In that stretch when he was just on fire, he showed how quickly he can put up offensive numbers, scoring the ball himself, the whole package. But at the same time, he’s a true point guard who can dominate a game with half that many points.
“He’s in that upper echelon. There’s no doubt about it.”
Bender is referring to a four-game stretch when Ridnour, who prepped at Blaine High School, averaged 17.8 points and 9.3 assists in two games against Arizona, two against Arizona State and one against Morris Brown.
In a 90-80 victory at Arizona Jan. 4, Ridnour set career highs, with 23 points, 10 assists and six 3-pointers.
“He’s playing like a senior,” Bender said.
But what truly set Ridnour apart, what helped 19th-ranked Oregon (14-4, 6-1 conference) become the surprise of the Pac-10, was something that will never reveal itself in game stats.
He got his teammates to work their heinies off when they didn’t have to. Ridnour might look like Opie Taylor, but he has the command of George Patton.
“Luke Ridnour single-handedly changed the work ethic of our basketball program,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said. “As much as coaches demand, it takes somebody on the inside who takes that too another level and encourages and inspires just by how hard he works. He has forced guys, because of his work ethic, to step up.”
Kent said when Ridnour came to Oregon, he was the physically weakest member of the team. He endured the typical ups and downs of a freshman year (yet still was named the conference’s Freshman of the Year) and dug in during the offseason, especially in the weight room.
Many picked the Ducks to finish in the middle of the Pac-10 or lower this season. The reasoning was that they’d lost top scorer and rebounder Bryan Bracey, and the Ducks were mediocre in 2001 anyway, having finished 5-13 in the conference and having lost 10 of their final 13 games.
But Kent points to Ridnour as the major reason that guard Frederick Jones has emerged as one of the premier shooting guards in the league; that 7-foot-2 project Chris Christoffersen finally is realizing his potential; that forward Luke Jackson is having a breakout sophomore year.
“It’s Rid’s work ethic last spring and the summer,” Kent said. “Guys sacrificed their summers. They did a great job academically. They didn’t have to be here. Yet they wanted to come in, get the job done academically during the summer, but more importantly, be together as a basketball team during the summer. It was Rid who got on the phone and even called the incoming players. He encouraged them to come in early. They came in on their own and spent that solitary time together as a team.”
That’s an assist that won’t show up in the scorebook.
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