University of Oregon Ducks play Stanford

Oregon Ducks forward Ben Carter (32) reaches for control of the ball against Stanford's Dwight Powell (33) on Jan. 12 at Matthew Knight Arena.

(Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian)

SEATTLE -- If Oregon was ever looking for a tailor-made road trip to break its four-game losing streak in Pac-12 games, Washington is it.

The Huskies, like the Ducks, do not possess an imposing center. They are next-to-last in points allowed per game (Oregon ranks as the worst) and worst in field-goal percentage defense. On Sunday, the Ducks will face Washington State, which was beaten easily by Oregon State on Wednesday evening. The Cougars are 11th in conference field-goal percentage defense, have just one of two negative scoring margins in the Pac-12 and their best player, DaVonte Lacy, is out at least two more weeks due to injury.

Next week, Oregon travels to Los Angeles to face UCLA and USC, which played the role of conference doormat at 0-5 until putting the league on notice by stunning Cal on Wednesday evening. A pair of losses there for the Ducks isn't out of the realm of possibility, suddenly.

Wins help in the standings, of course, but ever since Oregon's losing streak began at Colorado, coach Dana Altman has been frank with the media about the team's decreasing confidence level that suggests a win's biggest benefit might be to the team's psyche.

"It’s a fragile game," Altman said. "At times players, like I said, they respond to pressure differently so we’re trying to change things up. If I had the answer and I knew it was the answer we’d be doing it but this isn’t an exact science and it’s my job to get them going again."

It would seem appropriate, then, that in a two-week stretch that has turned what we knew about Oregon on its head, a player with a once-minimal role could be a spark to turn it around.

Sophomore 6-foot-8 forward Ben Carter scored a season-high 11 points in 16 minutes against Oregon State and showed why coaches and teammates were so disappointed he missed the season's first nine games with a suspension for selling team-issued apparel. It was his best game of the season, and possibly his career at UO, after averaging 3.0 points and 2.0 rebounds entering Sunday.

Junior guard Joseph Young said Wednesday that Carter's range extends to about 18 feet and that he consistently drains jumpers from the free-throw line elbow in practice. On the pick-and-roll, he would seem to be a candidate for Johnathan Loyd or Dominic Artis to hit on the "roll" for a mid-range jumper if he can increase his 33 percent shooting this season.

One game does not a trend make, of course. But there are positive signs developing, most notably his rating of 102.5 points allowed per 100 possessions, which is fourth-lowest on the team, and if Oregon's corps of undersized big men need anything, it's an infusion of defense right now.

"I thought he played pretty good, he gave good offensive moves inside and defensively was pretty solid," Altman said Tuesday. "He needed to rebound better but he did play pretty well. He was at a disadvantage missing those first nine games and has worked himself into shape and he did play well at Corvallis."

Now we'll see if he can play well enough, and by extension his team, in Washington to turn UO's small positive signs into its first win of 2014.

Of course, Oregon isn't alone in this search. After KEZI's

Ohio State, Wisconsin and Oregon were all top-10 teams only a couple weeks ago, I realized we needed to throw Iowa State into that mix, too. The result? A lot of once-elite teams are on a brutal 14-game combined losing streak.

OK, onto the links:

Here's part of

. It involves a lot of Joseph Young.

Addicted to Quack offers its preview of

.

The Register-Guard has its own preview of

.

KEZI posted the raw interviews of all the basketball interviews in case you wanted the see the team's psyche

Yep, it's almost Oregon baseball season. Here are amateur videos by me of Oregon RHP Jake Reed, who is UO's new closer

And here's another video of head coach

about the rotation.

Yesterday was the first

on 2014 Oregon football recruits. Another will be released this morning at 9 a.m., on a massive o-line recruit.

Thanks for reading, everybody.