David Bowie sang of "Ch... ch... ch... ch... changes" and the University of Oregon athletic department is certainly shouting along with the chorus these days. After 14 years as head coach and 20 years with the department Mike Bellotti took the route of his both his predecessor and a mentor to become the department's director.

Before the name plates and the offices are rearranged additional changes are on the lips of many with regard to the Duck men's and women's basketball teams. Whatever those decisions may be, it is clear that this isn't simply a change of chapters in the grand scheme of things, this is a change of eras.

The vocal constituency that advocates a change in the men's basketball program is either delusional or ignorant. There is no gray area here, no reasonable room for debate on the topic. Ernie Kent's players graduate. A respectable number are able to play professionally after they do so. He holds the program record for number of victories and number of tournament appearances. Twice in his tenure young teams with "disappointing" records developed into Elite Eight basketball teams in subsequent seasons. His players - without exception - represent the community and the university with poise and dignity.

Just for a moment - think of all the criticism Oregon receives about their uniforms, Nike's footprint on the program, the facilities, etc. Multiply that by an exponent of 10 and you will begin to approach the criticism the University would receive for violating all of their stated goals and principles to make that change.

First and foremost those who criticize miss that point, and from there all the other points they attempt to make are invalid, completely irrelevant to the discussion.

It is puzzling that although most of the grumblings were shown to be erroneous when they were aired previously they are still held by that vocal constituency, leaving one to wonder about the collective learning capabilities of the critics and free to question their credibility.

Perhaps in the domain of professional sports one can set aside mission statements and company ideals to engage in such an illogical - and destructive - fashion, but not at the collegiate level.

The suggestion is hard to avoid that a professional team would be a better fit for that constituency as well. It is clear that collegiate level athletics don't reward such individuals in the way they apparently feel is their due.

Collegiate athletics are too rich and subtle to use wins and losses as a singular benchmark. If one was to pick a program to follow, it would seem they would bring more to the table than that.

In fact, going strictly upon stated principles one could make a credible case that the earliest a change could be considered would be following 2010-2001 - the first year in Matthew Knight Arena. In every respect Kent has earned the right to coach the last year in Mac Court and to open the new facility.

On the other side of the gym it's a more difficult determination. It seems to be a foregone conclusion that head coach Bev Smith will not be retained after the womens' team stumbled through one of the program's worst seasons.

At the end of the 2007-2008 season, the program was put on notice that a tournament appearance this season was the expectation and that benchmark was clearly not met. For a number of perfectly understandable reasons, a new direction for the program could be pursued.

The case for another year for Smith is that those expectations were perhaps a bit ambitious - and truthfully that was visible fairly early in the season. The women's team is nearly as inexperienced as the men's team yet they played a non-conference schedule that was among the nations most difficult. Against that competition the Ducks struggled to score points and were frequently their own worst enemy with turnovers and poor shooting percentages - both traits of young teams.

Women's basketball in the Pac-10 conference is dominated by California and Stanford, nobody else is even close. Arizona State is probably a notch above the rest but not out of reach. That hierarchy isn't likely to change anytime soon so it is not unreasonable to assume that a junior/sophomore dominated team in 2009-2010 could find themselves in upper half of the standings simply because of an additional year experience.

Losses to Oregon State were particularly painful, as was a last second loss to UCLA in the last weekend of the season. If there is reason to feel those will be motivation for this team to improve next season it is probable that it could take place under a continuation of Smith's leadership. If it is not, it won't make any difference who is the coach.

Lacking that turnaround next season, the opening of the new arena and a new regime would serve as the cornerstones upon which to build the program.

If organizational stability is the advantage we generally hold it to be, the risk/reward ratio isn't significantly improved by making that change now as opposed to after next season should that improvement not materialize, although the recognition is that is likely a minority view.

With a seismic shift in the leadership at both the university and department level perhaps a philosophy of incremental change better paves the road ahead than does a wholesale transformation.