At practice earlier this week, when Oregon head coach Dana Altman was asked to pinpoint the reason behind his team’s shortcomings this season he failed to provide a diagnosis. It’s confusing because he’s seen their potential firsthand. It was certainly evident to him at practice. 

“I was really pleased because they had watched the film, saw how much work they needed, and really got after it,” Altman said. 

And that’s been the most maddening part for the head coach in his 13th year at Oregon manning a 12-9 team that’s responsible for some of the worst performances in that 13-year tenure. He knows his bunch is a talented one, they just have lapses in focus and effort that prove costly at this point in a season.

That was evident on Jan. 5, when they shot a season-worst 26% against Colorado (12-10, 4-7), but on Thursday in their second matchup with the Buffaloes, they emulated the type of team they’ve been all season — an unpredictable one. This time around, the Ducks got active in the passing lanes and out-rebounded the Buffaloes on their way to a 75-69 win.

Credit to the Buffaloes defense, but clearly Oregon’s 41-point drudgery was just a whole other version of a team that has countless.

Going back to that practice, after pausing for a moment, there was one thing Altman could point to, and that guard Keeshawn Barthelemy also referenced when trying to point out ways the Ducks could string together victories. 

“If we’re consistent in terms of the little things we do and then, in the bigger picture, we’ll be more consistent,” Barthelemy said at practice. 

“In the games we’ve won, we’ve rebounded, that shows our activity,” Altman said. “The deflections, it just shows our activity.”

On Thursday, those “little things” proved critical in Oregon’s win. 

They forced three turnovers in the first 10 minutes. Despite playing equally sloppy, they didn’t let their offensive woes affect their energy on the defensive side. 

After missing the previous matchup against his former team, Barthelemy kept the Ducks offense afloat in the first half. He used his speed to his advantage: pushing the pace off missed shots and forcing the Buffaloes into scramble mode rather than setting up their defense. By halftime, he led all players with 10 points.

The hustle plays trickled into the second half as the Ducks built a 51-41 lead, emphasized by Nate Bittle slamming home an alley-oop from Will Richarsdson. And it seemed like the Ducks had gained control of the game with that slam, but Bittle hung on the rim a beat too long and was hit with a technical foul. 

In that juncture, the Ducks could have reverted to a version of themselves that was present in that loss to Stanford or UC Irvine, earlier this season. 

And at first it seemed like they would. 

Following the stoppage in play, the Buffaloes turned up their full-court press, forcing subsequent turnovers and eventually cut the score to one possession. 

“Our turnovers looked like we’d never seen a press,” Altman said. “Guys were standing straight up-and-down, and weren’t moving very well.”

The score sat at 63-62 with just under five minutes to go. 

The Ducks were barely clinging to a lead, searching for any way to escape the press. If they could get a few stops and corrall the defensive rebounds off those stops, it would force the Buffaloes to retreat.

It wasn’t an easy task as the Ducks had lost their best rebounding advantage in center N’Faly Dante — he “tweaked his knee” in warm-ups, Altman said. 

But at that point, if it was doing the “little things” that Barthelemy and Altman each harped on to build that one-point lead, then it was the next-man-up-mentality they had developed from matchups with Michigan State and Villanova earlier this season — two games that saw the Ducks down to an eight-man rotation at points — that allowed them to find that final push on Thursday. 

“There’s not a person on our team that hasn’t really bought into their role,” Bittle said. “If they get in, if they get a couple minutes here and there, they know what they got to do.” 

That was evident in his play. In that final stretch, there was Bittle pulling down the defensive rebound off K.J. Simpson’s missed jumper, then contesting Luke O’Brien’s hook shot, and again a defensive rebound off a Simpson miss — the Ducks held the Pac-12’s No. 3 scorer to eight points on 2-of-13 shooting. 

It was also evident in the play of forward Quincy Guerrier — who slid back into the starting lineup in Dante’s wake, without missing a beat. 

“He stayed ready,” Altman said. “And that’s what you expect.”

Guerrier hit a three to extend the Ducks lead to four. The next possession he called for the ball on the block, missed the original push-shot but beat everyone to the tip-in and bellowed a resounding “and-one.” 

After a five-game stretch where Guerrier shot 17% from behind the arc, he led all scorers with 16 points. 

And to secure the six-point victory, the Ducks checked off yet another “little thing” that Altman had been longing to see from his team. They shot 7-of-8 from the free throw line in the final  minute and eight seconds. 

Yes, they shot a refreshing 49% from the field, but to respond to that press, to combat the Buffaloes’ final surge, it was focusing on those “little things” that proved to be the difference, on Thursday.