P12 Arizona Oregon Basketball

Oregon coach Kelly Graves, right, watches from the bench with his team during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Arizona in the Pac-12 tournament, Thursday, March 2, 2017, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

(Ted S. Warren)

It's less than two hours before the Oregon Ducks women's basketball team will learn if its 12-year drought in the NCAA Tournament will come to an end, and coach Kelly Graves and assistant coach Mark Campbell can barely contain their excitement.

Not for what will turn out to be a No. 10 seed in the NCAA Tournament, although that is one part of a master plan that has been unfolding behind the scenes. No, they're just as excited to talk about a three-year, in-house secret.

A vision comes together

This is the first in a three-part series about the rebuilding of the Oregon Ducks women's basketball team under coach Kelly Graves.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

They share a meticulously plotted plan that has seen Oregon steal one of the nation's top recruiters from its biggest rival, land arguably the sport's top prospect in back-to-back recruiting classes and end that dozen-year NCAA Tournament drought.

If Oregon has its way, that is only the beginning.

And to hear Graves and Campbell tell it, the Ducks have gotten their way an awful lot behind the scenes in the past two-plus years.

The vision

Graves didn't leave his 10-year streak of West Coast Conference championships at Gonzaga for a middling Pac-12 program that hadn't made the NCAA Tournament since 2005 because he thought the job would be easier.

He knew better.

But he had a vision.

"Listen, I could've stayed at Gonzaga and won 28-30 games every year, a championship and been really happy," Graves said. "But (the staff) wanted to put it all together, because we feel like this is the kind of place where you can win a national championship. Oregon is a heck of a brand -- a hot brand. It's a great school. We've got the facilities, the Nike relationship -- everything was there to recruit and coach the best players in the world."

Ask Graves about his success as a coach, and he's quick to point out the help he's received along the way.

He's a firm believer in sharing the credit with his coaching staff, and that head coaches often get far too much praise for wins produced on the court by a talented roster.

"If you don't have the talent, you can be the best coach in the world and (you're) probably going to get beat," he said.

For years, that talent floated into the program rather easily at Gonzaga, thanks to the Pac-12 bottom-feeder status of Washington, Washington State, Oregon and Oregon State.

But that changed in the class of 2012, as Oregon State netted what would turn out to be the foundation of its 2016 Final Four squad -- Ruth Hamblin, Jaime Weisner, Sam Siegner and Deven Hunter.

"This son-of-a-gun little program at Oregon State came in and started picking off some of these good Northwest players that we would've had a free run at, like a Weisner and Sam Siegner - the kind of players that were the foundation of what they built," Graves said. "I knew who was getting them there -- everybody knew."

That man was Oregon State assistant coach Mark Campbell.

So, when considering the Oregon job offer in spring 2014, Graves knew exactly what and who he needed to be successful.

"When I got the job, there were two things," Graves said. "Number 1, I needed the best recruiter on the West Coast. Now, I come to find out he's the best recruiter in the country. Two, I needed somebody who knew the Pac-12. I knew the league, because we played them some at Gonzaga, but I didn't really know the league. I asked around and everybody thought Mark Campbell was the best."

Before taking the job, Graves talked to the then-Oregon State assistant and pitched his vision for the Ducks basketball program.

It worked.

"I had a great time for the four years that I was in Corvallis," Campbell said. "But the opportunity to continue to grow as a young coach and learn from somebody like Coach Graves, who has been in the industry for 30 years and won at the highest level and mentored many young coaches ... And Oregon is such a powerful brand across the country, it checks off every box of what you are looking for."

After joining forces in Eugene, the tandem quickly devised a recruiting-driven plan for building a Pac-12 champion.

"Three years ago, within the first month we got hired, we had a three-year vision of knowing the lay of the land in the recruiting world," Campbell said. "And it played out to a T."

Read Part 2: The gamble

-- Andrew Nemec

anemec@oregonian.com

@AndrewNemec