Oregon Ducks men’s basketball players Mookie Cook and Nate Bittle have been cleared for all basketball activities.
In the middle of the Oregon Ducks appearance on Big Ten football’s media days, Oregon Ducks men’s basketball received some good news: senior center Nate Bittle and freshman wing Mookie Cook have been cleared for all basketball activities, according to a report from Jon Rothstein.
Last season, Bittle was kept out for most of the first half of the season with a wrist injury, and shortly after his return, he contracted an illness that hindered him for months and kept him off the court for the rest of the year. Cook needed surgery at the start of the 2023 season and then was reinjured four games after his debut.
Both players were expected to return by the start of the season in November, but receiving clean bills of health in July will help them tremendously come November.
Source: Oregon's Mookie Cook (ankle) and Nate Bittle (illness) have both been fully cleared for all basketball related activities.
Bittle averaged 10 PPG and 4.4 RPG in five games last season.
Cook — a former 4-star prospect — only appeared in four games last season.
Cook and Bittle could both be major impact players for Oregon this season. With N’Faly Dante’s eligibility waiver request being denied, Bittle is the Ducks’ most talented and experienced center. Oregon head coach Dana Altman likes to run his offense through his big men, so Bittle could be touching the ball a lot.
Cook’s role is harder to predict since he has just four games of college experience. But with Jermaine Couisnard not returning in the fall, the Ducks will need a strong two-way wing, whether he comes off the bench or starts. This year, I don’t see Cook cracking the starting five, but I think he’ll be a valuable member of the second unit.
The two Oregon Ducks grew up in the same town in Portland, and they both went to West Linn High School, winning state championships. Both decided to stay home at attend the University of Oregon, going on to have high-impact freshmen seasons.
Of course, Pritchard has continued his career on to the NBA, where he recently won his first championship with the Boston Celtics last month. Meanwhile, Shelstad is poised for what looks like a big-time sophomore campaign in Eugene.
There’s one other similarity between the two that was just uncovered on Saturday — the ability to dominate the Portland Pro-Am basketball game.
Shelstad reportedly scored 71 points in the Pro-Am this weekend. If you’ll remember back in 2021, Pritchard made headlines after reportedly scoring 92 points in the same Pro-Am game.
Oregon Sophmore G Jackson Shelstad just scored 71 at the Portland Pro Am😳
A pair of Oregon Ducks are projected to be selected in the latest 2025 NBA mock draft.
We didn’t see any Oregon Ducks get selected in the 2024 NBA Draft this week, though N’Faly Dante did sign a two-way contract with the Houston Rockets when all was said and done.
Going forward, though, that is expected to change.
Now that the 2024 draft is behind us, all eyes are looking forward to the 2025 draft now, with some impressive talent set to come off the board. For the Ducks, there is a pair of players who are expected to be drafted in the first round, one of whom is projected to go in the lottery.
According to the latest 2025 NBA mock draft from CBS Sports, Oregon sophomore Kwame Evans is projected to go to the Houston Rockets with the No. 11 pick in the draft.
A jumbo southpaw wing who covers the court effortlessly with extreme fluidity, Evans may never be an alpha type scorer or playmaker but he’s a projectable shooter, virtually ambidextrous, and has defensive upside. He might have had some real NBA intrigue this year but opted to go back to Oregon for his sophomore season.
Meanwhile, fellow Oregon sophomore Jackson Shelstad is projected to come off the board next, going to the Dallas Mavericks with the No. 24 pick.
Shelstad is a potent scorer out of Oregon who can fill it up in a hurry. He lacks size for a scorer at just 6-foot-1 but he has lots of game and if he proves himself as a playmaker, he could become a household name in college basketball.
If both of these players end up going this early in the draft, it likely means that the Ducks had a great season in 2024-25, so I have a feeling that Oregon fans would be okay with that.
Winters Grady, a 4-star small forward in the class of 2025, has scheduled an official visit with the Oregon Ducks men’s basketball team.
Dana Altman and the Oregon Ducks men’s basketball team keep gaining momentum on the recruiting trail. After already securing a commitment from 4-star shooting guard Jamari Phillips and locking down multiple recruiting visits this month, the Ducks have added another blue-chip prospect to their visitor list: Winters Grady.
Grady is a 4-star small forward, ranked as the No. 13 SF in the class of 2025, standing tall at six feet six inches. His height makes him a dangerous shooter, but his leaner frame at 185 pounds gives him plenty of mobility on the wing as well.
On Wednesday, Grady made some moves in his recruiting process, scheduling official visits with the Oregon Ducks and the Oklahoma Sooners according to Joe Tipton of On3Sports. Grady only received an offer from Oregon two weeks ago, so it seems he is excited by the prospect of being a Duck. He also holds offers from Creighton, Michigan, and others.
Grady plays his high school basketball at Prolific Prep, a school in Napa, California, but originally, he’s from Lake Oswego, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. Coming to Eugene for college would certainly be a homecoming for him, which could make Oregon more enticing.
Granted, it’s early in the recruiting cycle, but so far, the Ducks have zero commitments from the class of 2025, and after a sub-par 2024 recruiting class (made worse by the decommitment of Vyctorious Miller) Oregon may need some big swings in 2025. If the Ducks can impress Grady on his official visit, it could go a long way.
The WNBA awarded Sabrina Ionescu the WNBA Eastern Conference Player of the Week after a run of stellar performances.
Sabrina Ionescu and the New York Liberty have been on a tear to start the WNBA summer. Through 18 games, the Liberty are 15-3 — the best record in the league. Ionescu has been a big part of New York’s recent success, which earned the most recent Eastern Conference Player of the Week honors.
Last week, the Liberty won three out of their four games, and during that stretch, Ionescu averaged 25 points, 9.3 assists, and 4.7 rebounds, per game, while shooting 47.3 percent from the field. Her points and assists numbers topped the league during that time.
The Liberty are the top team in the WNBA, but in their most recent game, they suffered a key loss. On Tuesday, New York took on the Minnesota Lynx in the WNBA Comminsor’s Cup Championship. The Liberty lost, 94-89, making Minnesota the In-Season Tournament Champs, which awards them $500,000 in prize money.
Ionescu performed well in Tuesday’s game scoring 23 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, and dishing four assists. At halftime, the Liberty led, but after scoring just 10 points in the third quarter, the Lynx had built a lead New York couldn’t overcome.
The WNBA season just nearing its halfway point, so while the Liberty are in a great position after 18 games, they have a long way to go before the playoffs. On the horizon for New York, is a Sunday home game against the Atlanta Dream. Then, they’ll have a rematch against Minnesota and a matchup against Catlin Clark’s Indiana Fever.
Hey Ducks: Basketball courts are not meant for writing a term paper.
The Oregon Ducks are joining the USC Trojans in moving to the Big Ten. Oregon put down a new basketball court to replace the old “Deep In The Woods” look which annoyed people both in and outside of Eugene. The new court design still has “Deep In The Woods” written on the fresh hardwood floor, but the look is substantially different.
“The day has finally come for the Oregon Ducks to unveil the new court design at Matthew Knight Arena. Kilkenny Court, which originally opened with the arena back in 2011, has seen a couple of small changes over the last decade, but the recent redesign completely wiped the slate clean and started fresh as the Ducks prepare for a new world in the Big Ten Conference.
“While the old court featured fir trees of brownish tints surrounding the borders, the new design swaps the brown for green and brightens up the arena tenfold.”
Here is our grade for the court, whose images you can see at the Ducks Wire link provided above.
We start with the simple point that Oregon’s sharp green is the dominant color, as it should be. The old court was brown and rusty, a terrible aesthetic presentation. Green with some yellow accents is exactly the color structure which should be used. Color scheming and layout are superb.
There is still a “Deep In The Woods” flavor to the court, but the forest is more muted than in the previous version. It’s tasteful and not overpowering.
The only problem with the court is that there’s way too much writing on it. “Deep In The Woods” and “Kilkenny Court” appear twice, in both corners. Having players spot up for corner threes with words stuffed between the out of bounds lines and the 3-point arc is excessive and cluttered. “Deep In The Woods” should appear once, and it should be out of bounds at midcourt, in front of the scorer’s table. “Kilkenny Court” should appear just under “Matthew Knight Arena” at midcourt.
The colors and accents are great. There’s too much writing. Our grade: B-plus. Don’t you Ducks know when to use restraint?
Oregon has its new floor in Eugene, and the Big Ten markings are not the big story.
The change to the Big Ten is giving USC, Oregon, Washington, and UCLA a chance to install new basketball playing surfaces. USC installed its new floor. Oregon has done the same. However, whereas USC used a relatively standard court design, Oregon is trying to be splashy and unique. The school with dozens of different football uniforms and its previous “Deep In The Woods” court wanted a revision of its basketball playing surface. For most schools, merely having Big Ten markings would be a big deal, but at Oregon, it was a much bigger deal than just slapping on the new conference logo. Ducks Wire’s Zachary Neel offered a lengthy assessment of the Ducks’ new court in Matthew Knight Arena, and he talked to the men who designed the new floor.
“So how did that play into the new design? They didn’t work to cover up the woodgrain patterns with opaque paint like the previous design, but instead, let it play through the trees and represent the character of the northwest. Another brilliant touch that pays homage to Oregon history is the warm and rich color of the wood, which was brought out by using an oil finish, like at MacArthur Court, rather than a bleached wood look that has become popular across the nation.”
The new design at Matthew Knight Arena is far more complex than just a basketball court.
The Oregon Ducks have seen a lot of change over the past few years, and they’re undoubtedly going to see more in the near future. As of August 2, the University of Oregon will be part of the Big Ten Conference, moving away from the Pac-12, and they’ll be faced with a new horizon where endless possibilities await.
That may be daunting for some to think about, but when you consider what Oregon is at its core — innovative — then the change should feel like second nature.
With the massive changing of conferences, the Ducks took it upon themselves to make a change of their own this summer, undergoing a makeover of the basketball court at Matthew Knight Arena. The University unveiled the new court design on Sunday afternoon to much adoration from the fanbase.
Out is the brownish tint of the evergreen trees in MKA’s old “Deep in the Woods” design that was unveiled in 2011, and in is a new, vibrant green and yellow masterpiece that is innovative and fresh.
Photo Courtesy of Oregon Athletic Department
While the design is new, at the core of it is history.
History of the Tall Firs, and McArthur Court. History of the original court that was designed by the legendary Tinker Hatfield when Matthew Knight Arena opened earlier this century.
History, but better.
“We got into looking at some of the things that came across really well and the relationship the trees had the first time around,” said Todd Van Horne, the Founder of Van Horne Designs and Creative Director of the project. “We thought of how to do those things differently, and how to do them better.”
In the grand scheme of things, the design of the new court is similar to that of the old; tall fir trees surround the edges, jutting into the middle of the court and giving a viewpoint of looking up to the sky while sitting in an Oregon meadow.
It’s not a complex idea, but the reasoning behind it is meaningful.
“The original intent back in the day with Tinker Hatfield and myself was this conversation about Matthew Knight,” Van Horne said, speaking of Nike co-founder Phil Knight’s eldest son, who passed away in a scuba-diving accident at age 34 back in 2004.
“He’s looking down at Eugene from the heavens and us here on Earth looking up to the heavens. You’re sitting in this meadow, and you’re seeing these trees around you and this environment that makes Eugene and Oregon such a special place.”
Photo Courtesy of Oregon Athletic Department
Matthew Knight — whom the arena is named after — is also represented in some of the finite details of the court. Near the key on both ends, there is a “Soaring Ducks” formation that resembles the “Missing Man” formation in the Air Force for a pilot who was lost in battle.
“There’s always kind of a plane missing in formation,” said Quinn Van Horne, the Senior Designer on the project. “So we did this as a reference to Matthew Knight and his legacy being lost from the Knight family, but him always being there and the arena being a testament to his life and his spirit.”
That meadow-like design is still present, but scaled back a touch on the new court, intending to brighten things up and “open up the sky.”
Another major emphasis was the wood itself. When talking to Van Horne in an exclusive interview, the Nike creative director brought up an old Bill Bowerman quote that has resonated with him through time.
“Wood is Oregon, and Oregon is wood.”
So how did that play into the new design? They didn’t work to cover up the woodgrain patterns with opaque paint like the previous design, but instead, let it play through the trees and represent the character of the northwest. Another brilliant touch that pays homage to Oregon history is the warm and rich color of the wood, which was brought out by using an oil finish, like at MacArthur Court, rather than a bleached wood look that has become popular across the nation.
“Oregon is going to have wood that looks like wood,” said Quinn Van Horne.
The trees surrounding the court stand out in a way that they never did before, and the intricacy that went into making that possible boggles the mind.
Both Quinn and Todd told me that one extra step they took in the designing process was to send out photographers into the Oregon wilderness with a simple task: Capture the essence of your surroundings.
What they returned with was over 250 unique photos of different evergreen trees in the area, which were then digitalized and spread throughout the design.
“There’s no repeated trees on the court, it’s not clipart,” Todd Van Horne said. “These are actually photographed trees from the northwest that create this design.”
At first glance, the most noticeable change of the new design is the vibrance of the color. While the old court featured dark brown shades and earth tone tints that drew a lot of criticism from fans for “darkening” the whole image, the new court couldn’t be more different.
Out with the brown, and in with the green.
Scott Olmos-USA TODAY Sports
“The grass is damn green in Eugene,” Todd Van Horne said. “So we really wanted to surround the court with the beauty of the color of green grass and Eugene.”
More than just enriching the aesthetics of the court, the goal of bringing in more greenery, so to speak, was to liven up the energy of the arena, and create a sense that the court wasn’t just a surface to play the games on, but a character in the story of the contest.
“I think especially from the fans’ perspective, they want to feel that energy when they walk in,” Quinn Van Horne said. “They want to feel that energy and we wanted the court to feel like it’s a little bit of that heartbeat of the arena. We want it to feel like it comes alive as the arena comes alive.”
Over the past year, since the announcement came that the Ducks would be leaving the Pac-12 for a spot in the Big Ten, there has been a bit of an identity crisis for many Oregon fans.
What would come of this team, and the University, without the backdrop of over a century’s worth of history in the Pac-12? How will the loss of conference matchups with the likes of Oregon State, Washington State, and Stanford — among others — impact the outlook of the sport?
What happens when you take the fabric of your being and shed it for a new look?
Photo Courtesy of Oregon Athletic Department
With the new design of the court, that shouldn’t be a major concern. The design team went the extra mile at every single opportunity and did everything possible to create something fresh and new. They did this while paying homage to the past, and making things feel like they were part of the scenery in Eugene.
This isn’t just a basketball court with green baselines and yellow lettering. The wood isn’t just wood, and the midcourt logo isn’t just a giant ‘O.’ It’s much more than that.
“When you’re designing something for Oregon, the standard has been set,” Quinn Van Horne said.
Great lengths were taken to make sure that this place feels like home, and it’s very apparent.
“Look out any window and you’re seeing trees everywhere you are in Oregon,” Todd Van Horne said. “And that idea we kind of take for granted. But that idea is what makes Oregon so special to us. The air you feel here, the cleanness of everything, the trees surrounding you, it’s always green.”
In a new era where the Ducks will be traveling far and wide, making things feel like home when you’re at home is more important than ever.
“You don’t want to feel like you’re just walking into a basketball arena,” Quinn Van Horne said. “You’re walking into a microcosm of what makes Oregon special, and what makes Oregon great. We’re reiterating those stories and those passions of what really makes us proud to be Oregon Ducks and proud to be Oregonians.”
The Ducks unveiled the new Matthew Knight Arena court design on Sunday.
The day has finally come for the Oregon Ducks to unveil the new court design at Matthew Knight Arena.
Kilkenny Court, which originally opened with the arena back in 2011, has seen a couple of small changes over the last decade, but the recent redesign completely wiped the slate clean and started fresh as the Ducks prepare for a new world in the Big Ten Conference.
While the old court featured fir trees of brownish tints surrounding the borders, the new design swaps the brown for green and brightens up the arena tenfold.
When the new design — created by the legendary Tinnker Hatfield and Van Horne Designs — was released on Sunday night, it was met with a bunch of adoration from fans.
Former Oregon Ducks point guard Payton Pritchard rocked an Oregon shirt at the Boston Celtics championship parade on Friday.
On Monday, the Boston Celtics won the 2024 NBA Championship, making West Linn, Oregon, native Payton Pritchard the fifth former Oregon Duck to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
The Celtics held their championship parade on Friday, and Pritchard made sure not to forget his home state and alma mater, rocking a 1994 Pac-10 champions Oregon Rose Bowl shirt for the festivities.
Boston point guard Derrick White played fantastic throughout the playoffs, which limited Pritchard’s minutes. Still, Pritchard found his way to make an impact in the Celtics’ five-game victory over the Dallas Mavericks. His best performance came in Game 4, the Celtics’ sole loss, when he gave Boston 11 points, 3 assists, and 3 rebounds in 22 minutes.
Pritchard’s shirt isn’t where the Ducks’ connection to the Boston Celtics parade ends, with Boston parades celebrating on Duck boats. Duck boats are amphibious vehicles used for tours in Boston that are transformed into party boats after Boston sports championships.
The Celtics’ win on Monday night snapped a pattern of coming so close to absolute victory before falling short for Pritchard. At Oregon, Pritchard was a part of the 2017 Ducks team that reached the Final Four, where they fell to North Carolina. Then in 2020, Pritchard’s Celtics fell to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals, and two years later, Boston lost to Golden State in the NBA Finals.
Any championship is sweet. But after coming so close, so many times, it has to feel sweeter.
