Oregon Ducks head coach Dana Altman is unsure whether Nate Bittle will return to the court for the Ducks this season, despite him being questionable to play in Oregon’s last few games.
After missing most of the first half of the season, Bittle looked primed for a healthy return to the court in late January. His injury was to his wrist, so he was able to maintain his conditioning through his absence. But after returning for limited minutes in two games last month, Bittle was forced off the court by an illness. Initially, the illness was just expected to keep him sidelined for a game or two, but now it appears he may be out for an extended period.
On Tuesday, Altman spoke on the Oregon basketball in-house radio show about Bittle and the shrinking pool of available players for Oregon.
“We kept anticipating Nate was going to be back and I’m not sure he’s going to,” Altman said. “Then with Keeshawn (Barthelemy) out we’ve got to do a better job of delegating and distributing those minutes, keeping our guys fresh so we can finish games a little stronger.”
Oregon has seven games left on its schedule, but unfortunately, an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament is likely already out of the Ducks’ reach. But if Oregon can start finishing games stronger as Altman suggested, they’ll finish the regular season with a high seed for the Pac-12 tournament, improving their chances at a conference championship and automatic bid for March Madness.
“Right now we’ve got these eight guys, and then we’ve got Gabe (Richle) and (James Cooper) I can put it, so we’ve got those 10 guys ready to go,” Altman said. “It’s kind of what we’ve got the rest of the season. We kind of know that. As a coaching staff, we got to make adjustments now.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3]