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EUGENE, Ore. -- Oregon has not lived up to its hype.The Ducks were picked to win the NCAA basketball title by Sports Illustrated and ranked No. 5 in the nation by one major poll, but have fallen to No. 23 after a pair of early-season losses.I think we are still getting it, senior guard Dylan Ennis said. Because we were ranked No. 5 to start the season, everyone expected us to be this monster team and we are still learning what to do. It is a new team with a lot of new guys meshing in. We will get it. Last year, we had a few growing pains and at the end of the year we got it right, so I think that will happen again this year.Oregon (5-2) has won three straight games heading into a matchup with Division II Western Oregon (3-3) on Wednesday night at Matthew Knight Arena.Oregons preseason hype was based on returning four starters from last year when the Ducks reached the Elite Eight before losing to Oklahoma. However, preseason All-American Dillon Brooks missed the first three games of the season following foot surgery and is coming off the bench to average 9.8 points in his first four games back.The 6-foot-7 junior was 1-for-9 from the field in a 68-63 win over Boise State on Monday while scoring five points in 21 minutes.He was sped up and had a bad game, Oregon coach Dana Altman said. He was trying too hard and going too fast and had a tough night. We know he is a good player, we have seen it the last two years. He has to slow down.Ennis, a senior transfer from Villanova who missed all but two games last season due to foot surgery, has picked up his play in recent weeks, scoring a team-high 18 points against Boise State after scoring 15 in the previous win over Connecticut. He had 39 points in his first five games.Coach talked to me as one of the leaders of this team and told me to relax, he said. I was really giddy the first couple games back. I needed to relax and play my game and coach kept confidence in me.Guard Tyler Dorsey has also played better lately with a team-high 19 points against UConn followed by 17 against Boise State. Dorsey had four straight games scoring in single digits before combining to go 13-for-23 from the field and 6-of-13 on three-pointers in the last two games.Oregon is in the middle of a nine-game stretch of games in its home state that includes the final seven nonconference games before opening Pac-12 play against UCLA and USC in Eugene.Weve just got to win, at the end of the day that is the biggest thing, junior guard Casey Benson said. We have to take care of business at home. These nonconference games are just as big so we need to step up and get some wins.Western Oregon is led by guard Ali Faruq-Bey with 13.7 points per game while forward Tanner Omlid averages 12.8 points and 7.7 rebounds. Hydro Flask Boca Ancha . - Connor McDavid scored 53 seconds into overtime as the Erie Otters came from behind to defeat the visiting Guelph Storm 4-3 on Saturday in Ontario Hockey League action. Hydro Flask España . Breaking three of his own world records on his way to winning in Paris, Chan silenced the critics and left the audiences standing in appreciation and awe. http://www.botellashydroflask.es/hydro-flask-cafe.html . 4 Villanova with a 96-68 drubbing on Monday. Wragge hit 9-of-14 from behind the arc, matching Kyle Korvers school record for 3-pointers in a game set in 2003, as Creighton (16-3, 6-1 Big East broke a conference record with 21 treys in the rout. Hydro Flask 24 Oz . President of baseball operations Larry Beinfest was fired Friday after 12 years with the Marlins. The move came as the team neared the end of its third consecutive last-place season in the NL East. Hydro Flask Comprar . The Americans, skipped by John Shuster, seized the advantage in the eighth end by scoring five points for a 7-3 lead. The Czechs pulled two back in the ninth, but Shusters team of third Jeff Isaacson, second Jared Zezel and lead John Landsteiner ended with another point to secure the last Olympic berth on offer. EGNA, Italy -- Carolina Kostner is coming full circle.The Italian has returned to her native Alto Adige region to climb back to the elite level of international figure skating after a nearly three-year absence due to a suspension for helping her then-boyfriend evade doping controls.While the hometown fans gave her a heros welcome during the Italian championships this week, Kostner was nowhere near her top form of 2014, when she won the bronze medal at the Sochi Winter Olympics with a near flawless free skate.But if anyone can raise her back to Olympic levels, it is Alexei Mishin, the Russian coach who trained Alexei Urmanov, Alexei Yagudin, and Yevgeny Plushenko to greatness.Kostner has been training with Mishin full-time in St. Petersburg since Sept. 1.When she came to me, she was destroyed, Mishin said after Kostner claimed her eighth Italian title on Thursday.Mishin said his first mission, after her long absence from competition, was to give her confidence that she is able to compete. And step by step, I think we did.His second task has been to radically shake up her approach to the elements. Mishins skaters dont learn by repetition, a common approach to vanquish errors and create muscle memory. Instead, Mishin assigns them a set of exercises for each jump to create the proper technique. And she is catching on, he said.Carolina is one of the most precise and serious pupils which I ever had, Mishin said.The technique, which in many ways is a form of creative destruction, is nothing less than grueling, Kostner acknowledged.He has revealed an interesting but not so simple method that has provoked many moments of frustration, some cursing, many falls, and many moments of uncertainty, Kostner said. In some ways, I feel like a 14-year-old who is learning, almost from zero. It is not from zero, it is only a change in perception, which often in life isnt bad.Kostners last competitive season in 2014 was by far her finest. She won the Olympic bronze with a career-best 142.61 points in the free skate after landing seven triples, three in combination, to a fluidly choreographed Bolero. She followed that with a best-ever short program at the world championships in Saitama, Japan, where she finished third.She always planned to take off at least part of the 2015 season to rest, but the suspension turned that into two full seasons. Kostner called it a period of maturation when addressing reporters after reaching a deal last year to return to competition. She exuded a newfound tranquiility, along with a determination to get back into competition, sights set on a fourth Olympics.ddddddddddddDuring the break, Kostner kept up exhibition skating, and she started training with a dance company in Rome to enhance her expression. But she was missing critical ice hours working on top-level elements.Fast forward to the 2016-2017 season, and her level of difficulty has clearly diminished.In her final free program before an adoring home crowd, the former world champion skipped a simple triple toe loop jump in combination. As she came off the ice, Mishin gave her a quizzical look and pointed to his head, as if to say, What happened?The error was surprising, but Mishin played it down.We did not plan to be perfect right now, he said.Mishin huddled backstage after the nationals with Lori Nichol, Kostners longtime choreographer who also worked with Michelle Kwan, telling her that they needed to add more difficulty to the program to be competitive for Europeans and possibly worlds.In both her comeback competitions over the last month, Kostner was far from her previous seven triple mark, which she will need to recover to be a factor at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. Still, the determining factor in Kostners success has always been her artistry and grace on the ice.Kostners next challenge will be the Europeans in Ostrava, Czech Republic, at the end of January. Depending on the outcome, the Italian federation will make a final decision on whether Kostner gets Italys single worlds berth, which last year went to Roberta Rodeghiero, who finished 16th at the worlds but fifth at the Europeans.Kostner is spending two weeks at home in Alto Adige with her family for the holidays, and part of that time she will be working with Nichol to polish the programs according to Mishins prescription and her own observations. Kostners team claims the goal is not the podium.`We are just trying to have her become the best that she can be, Nichol said. `Of course, I would hope her to have another moment on the ice, whether it is on the podium or not, where she feels like she has done everything she can.For Kostner, the experience of coming back has been nothing if not humbling.`I still have a lot to learn, and that is wonderful because two years ago, I thought I had learned everything in my sport, Kostner said. `Instead, every day I am aware there is a whole new world. ' ' '