To close out their preseason slate, the Oregon men’s basketball got its second win of the season as it beat Southwestern Oklahoma State 82-65 in convincing fashion. With double-digit scoring from five of their players, the Ducks had a lot to be happy about as they look forward to the regular season.
“This team’s gonna up and down for awhile, but I like the young guys. I think they have tremendous upside,” said head coach Dana Altman. “We have some pretty good depth and, we’re making progress — progress not nearly as fast as I want it to be, but I do see us making progress.”
Leading the way for the Ducks was freshman Dominic Artis, who finished with 15 points on a solid 4-for-8 shooting with five rebounds. Alongside Artis were four other Ducks who scored 12 points each: E.J. Singler, Tony Woods, Damyean Dotson, and Carlos Emory. It was an all-around team effort by the Ducks on the offensive and defensive end as they racked up an 16 total steals.
“I think we’re gonna have pretty good depth,” Altman said. “We’re gonna have to have some guys come along, but we have a lot of guys potentially who can play for us (right away),” he said. “They have to show that everyday in practice, but I do think that our depth will be okay.”
With six freshman on the team, inexperience and depth will be a question heading into not only regular-season play, but Pac-12 play as well. This young Ducks team will need some time to adjust to each other’s play and get accustomed to playing at a high level consistently, but even after only two exhibition games, the younger players have stepped up their games in a short span of time.
Takeaways. This is only the end of the two exhibition games, and still much more is to come as this team continues to mold together. The new Ducks will try and adjust on the fly as they march forward, but with freshman Dominic Artis showing more of what he has to offer as a potential leader of this team, and Tony Woods improving on both ends of the court, there is definitely a lot of upside for this team moving forward.
On the horizon: Next for the Ducks is the regular season opener against Northern Arizona this Saturday at home at 4:30 p.m. This will be yet another chance for the Ducks to grow as a team and see what they need to improve on before they start facing conference opponents.