“We have a long way to go.”
That seems to be the theme of the night after the Ducks defeated Concordia 94-63 at Matthew Knight Arena to run their winning streak to two. Although the final score was indicative of Oregon’s second-highest scoring output on the year, head coach Dana Altman was adamant that this Ducks team needs to both practice and play harder.
“We’ve got plenty of depth on the team — our guys just need to concentrate on playing a heck of a lot harder,” Altman said. “We’ve got to play a lot better — our execution on offense has got to be a lot better and defensively we’ve got to tie a lot of things up.”
For a team that had only three returning players who saw more than 100 minutes of action all of last year, a 5-2 record would be a pretty good standing halfway through the preseason schedule.
While Altman acknowledges that it is good to be 5-2, the Ducks have yet to beat any big-name programs, falling 70-63 to Michigan and 77-63 against VCU, in their only matchups featuring ranked teams.
“We have to understand that we got some ball games coming up, starting with Mississippi on Sunday,” Altman said. “We hung around for a while with Michigan and VCU but we didn’t win — there’s a big difference between hanging around for a while and winning.”
One thing plaguing the Ducks has been their inconsistency playing together as a team.
“We’ve got to continue to play as a unit and continue to share the ball — it’s got to be collective as a whole, not about individuals,” freshman Casey Benson said. “We’ve got to continue to make steps, continue to improve in practice and continue to improve as a unit and as a team.”
Too many times will players try and take the ball one-on-one with a defender rather than continuing the offense. This selfishness has really cut down on the ball movement and forced more turnovers than Oregon can afford to give up, especially once they start facing high-quality competition.
One of the biggest areas that Altman believes his players need help in is effort. Their effort on the defensive side of the ball has been pretty good to start the season off with but has really tapered off the last few games as the Ducks, when playing against inferior competition, have decided to sink to that level rather than keeping the intensity up.
“We went into the game with some things we wanted to work but I don’t think we got those things accomplished,” Altman said. “We’re going to have our hands full (as the season goes on) but I don’t think we’re preparing for our future.”
One great instance of this is when Concordia was cutting into Oregon’s lead to start the second half when the Ducks, fresh off a turnover, saw the Cavaliers point guard pick up the ball and start the fast break. Joseph Young, Oregon’s best player and team leader, let the ball carrier dribble right by him while jogging back on defense. Not only did he let ball carrier go by him without putting any effort in to stop him, Young allowed another Concordia player to run by him and receive the ball for an easy layup.
Its those kinds of effort plays has Altman upset with the direction his squad in heading in. If the Ducks are to fix these issues though, it’s going to start in practice, a sentiment some of the players have started to acknowledge.
“I just feel like we got to keep coming to practice and getting better — I feel like some days in practice we don’t go hard enough,” freshman Ahmaad Rorie said. “Whenever we have a good practice, we come out and play good.”
Although the Ducks may look-like a rag-tag group of kids playing basketball when you check out their experience level, this team is talented with a solid 8-man rotation. But, talent will only get you so far and the Ducks clearly don’t have enough of it so if they’re going to take that next step forward on their long journey to satisfaction, it starts with effort and it starts in practice.
Follow Ryan Kostecka on Twitter @Ryan_Kostecka