LOUISVILLE, Ky. — You can’t be Cinderella when swooshes are emblazoned on your glass slippers, when you’re two years removed from the Final Four, when you begin a season ranked among the nation’s top 15 teams.
But a 12 seed always looks out of place in the Sweet 16. Especially when no other team left in the field is seeded lower than fifth. Especially when an NCAA Tournament berth seemed unrealistic three weeks earlier.
“Going from thinking that we’re never going to be in the tournament, that I was never going to play on a stage like this, to making it to the Sweet 16 … it feels surreal,” Oregon sophomore Kenny Wooten said. “We ended up winning the Pac-12 Tournament … and that’s when I thought that we were able to do anything.”
After 10 straight wins, the Ducks (25-12) have made anything feel possible.
On Thursday night, the 12 seed in the Midwest Region, which finished in the middle of a woeful Pac-12, will stand in the same spot as top-seeded Virginia (31-3) from the country’s best conference.
A team that needed four straight wins in its conference tournament to make the NCAA Tournament is now two wins from the Final Four. A defense that has held opponents to averages of 54 points and 33 percent shooting over the past month now believes it will best the Tony Bennett-led unit, which has long been the standard in the sport.
“I think we’re as good as any team in this tournament,” lead guard Payton Pritchard said. “It’s exactly what we want, to go against supposedly one of the best teams in college.”
Oregon was supposed to be one of the nation’s best, but suffered a slew of early-season injuries, most notably losing 7-foot-2 star freshman Bol Bol to a foot injury just nine games into the year.
Then, even after Pritchard’s play-making and Wooten’s jaw-dropping blocks led the Ducks to the Sweet 16 for the third time in four years, Bol created new problems this week after being accused by lawyer Michael Avenatti of accepting “large sums from Nike.” Bol was present Wednesday, but did not speak to dispute the allegations. Coach Dana Altman said he had no information.
His teammates had bigger concerns. Bol hasn’t been out there for months. The Ducks haven’t needed him out there in weeks.
“We got something to worry about here,” senior Paul White said. “If we thought about that right now, that’s not going to benefit anyone.”
It has been a season defined by surprise. And the only team capable of truly shaking up the tournament believes more is in store.
“We knew that once we got our team together and our defense together, we could be dangerous together in March,” guard Ehab Amin said. “Coach would tell us it’s never too late. It’s not too late.”
