P10 Media Day: Oregon’s Ernie Kent

On the Pac-10
“For the last three years, we’ve heard the Pac-10 is down heading into the preseason. Then sure enough we get all the scouts to come to the Pac-10 and they say, ‘We could just draft the Pac-10 alone.’ What you’re going to see in the conference this year is the emergence of a lot of great young players. As we get into Pac-10 play it’s going to be a great conference race.”

On Oregon last year:
“Last year, when we started our season, I looked out on our floor and saw six young players who hadn’t played a game. With a grueling schedule we had, I don’t think we really had a chance for success. But they’ve had an exceptional offseason. We’re bigger, a lot bigger. We’re stronger. We are a deep basketball team, and of our four new players, three are going to really help us.”

On Oregon:
“When you see our team, you’ll see the most athletic basketball team we’ve had at Oregon since I’ve been there. We’ve had a couple scrimmages already and the thing most impressive for the staff is how we’ve been able to score the basketball. We need to find our rhythm early, and once we do, we have a chance to be a very good basketball team.”

On UCLA:
“I thought they were a really good basketball team last year. Yet you heard a lot of talk about his defense not being as good in the past. He was playing freshmen. I think the biggest thing, and we’ve gone through this, is the reloading process. From a national perspective, people say he’s lost 1-2-3, but they’ve got some great personnel in their basketball program.”