Things were looking pretty grim early on in the season for Dana Altman and the Oregon Ducks.
With two seasons of disappointment still weighing down a fanbase that wanted desperately to believe, injuries to star players thinned out the roster in familiar fashion.
All-Pac-12 center N’Faly Dante was undergoing surgery on his knee; Nate Bittle was sidelined with a potential season-ending wrist injury; 5-star freshman Jackson Shelstad saw his debut delayed because of an injury; freshman Mookie Cook continued to rehab from a preseason injury; and veteran guard Jesse Zarzuela was ruled out for the year with an ankle injury.
At one point late in November, the situation got so dire that Altman publicly declared the team was looking for mid-season additions to the team via the transfer portal or as a walk-on, just so they would have enough guys to practice with. Despite the short rotation, Oregon found success on the court. Throughout the month of December, the team went 6-1, beating teams like Michigan, USC, and UCLA.
Of course, the return from Shelstad helped, as the true freshman quickly blossomed and announced himself as a superstar in the making. The improved play from guys like Kario Oquendo and Kwame Evans played a big part as well, with big man Mahahadou Diawara being a saving grace in many ways.
Regardless, though, navigating this short-handed roster — down two of the team’s best players — through a difficult start to the conference schedule was nothing short of a masterpiece from Altman. A quarter of the way through the Pac-12 slate, Oregon stands as the only undefeated team out west, with a 13-3 record on the year.
And they’re about to get better.
On Saturday night in Oregon’s 80-73 win over the California Golden Bears, Dante played for the first time since the team’s season-opener vs. Georgia, giving 8 points and 2 rebounds in 17 minutes. Before the game, Bittle warmed up in uniform, though his return seems to still be a week or so away, at the earliest.
With those two players returning, it’s the depth on the roster that has Altman excited about the future in Eugene.
“This is great from a coaching perspective because we’re going to have some competition for spots,” Altman said on Saturday night. “When we got down to seven guys, everyone knew they were going to play. Now they’re going to be a little bit more accountable. That’s a good thing. That’ll make us better and tougher as a team.”
Most coaches try to stick to an 8 or 9-man rotation in college basketball, sometimes getting into the double digits. Looking at Oregon’s roster, though, it’s not hard to find as many as 11 players getting valuable minutes when everyone is back healthy.
It turns out that’s what Altman always had envisioned for this group.
“When we went into the season, we thought our depth was going to be one of our big things,” Altman said. “One of the things that we could really count on when you’re playing Thursday, Saturday — that we would have 10 guys that we could play. And you know, I think moving forward, that’s that’s got to be one of our strengths.”
Going forward, the road isn’t going to get easier for the Ducks. While they have some key pieces returning to the lineup, four of their next six games are on the road, with two of them coming on the infamous mountain road trip against Colorado and Utah this coming week.
They then will turn around and host Arizona State — one of the hotter teams in the conference — and Arizona — the No. 8 team in the nation — at Matthew Knight Arena the next week before traveling south to face the LA schools.
“We have a tough road coming up, and we just really want to keep winning,” Jadrian Tracey said on Saturday night. “We’ve got some guys coming back. So they can come help us out and so we can play harder minutes when we’re in there and not that seven-man rotation.”
At the moment, things are looking good in Eugene, and the energy is positive as they surge forward with more depth going forward. As Altman pointed out on Saturday, though, the team is just a quarter of the way through their conference season. So while they feel good now, it’s no time to take a foot off of the gas.
“As I told (the team), we’re up in the first 10 minutes,” Altman said. “They don’t give trophies for being up 10 minutes into the game, and that’s all we’ve done is get off to a good start.”
With a tough stretch ahead and a replenished cabinet of reserves and starters, we’ll see how the Ducks can close out into the half.
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