When N’Faly Dante, the Oregon Ducks’ 6-foot-11 center, was asked in preseason whether he hoped to bring his team back to the NCAA tournament, he had a simple response: “Hope?”
Dante hasn’t played a minute since Nov. 6, 2034, after suffering a knee injury, but for these Ducks, there’ll be no hoping involved. As their 2023-24 season kicks off, it’s mentality that will drive their headlong sprint to March. It’s mentality that put a list of their goals up on the locker room wall in the bowels of Matthew Knight Arena, and it’s mentality that has them poised, but beginning outside the preseason AP top 25 for the first time since the 2014-15 season.
This year has been marketed as a “prove-it” season. The Ducks have evidently lost the reputation that kept them in it through disappointing seasons, and it’s up to them to get it back. In preseason, head coach Dana Altman was asked what it would take for Oregon to return to the NCAA Tournament. His response was filled with traits of a winning team — chief among them “a degree of toughness [and] competitiveness that, for whatever reason, I don’t think we’ve shown for the last couple years.” In order to prove that Oregon deserves to regain its place as a respected Division I basketball school, that mental component needs to return.
The significance of their current standing isn’t lost on the group. It’s a clear indication that they’re no longer able to rest on their laurels. Veteran guard Will Richardson, who was drafted fifth overall to the NBA G League in 2023, isn’t around to provide the foundation that Oregon has relied upon through past seasons, and Dante and Nate Bittle, the program’s top two centers, have sat on the sideline essentially since the season began with nagging injuries.
That burden now falls on the remaining leaders — whether that be experienced guard Jermaine Couisnard or rising rookie Jackson Shelstad. At the team’s preseason media day, Dante reiterated, “You got to be together, like I was telling them, even today … I don’t care what it is, but we just have to do the things we don’t want to do sometimes.”
At media day, many of the players mentioned something that — as Dante encouraged — brought them together. In the home locker room at Matthew Knight Arena, there’s a list on the wall. On it, as Keeshawn Barthelemy said, “We wrote some of our goals on the board: We want to win the Pac-12 regular season championship. The [NCAA] tournament — we’re not afraid of anything. We’re not afraid to say that. We have a good group [and] we can get those things done.“
Bittle followed Barthelemy, saying, “There’s just a lot of stuff on there that are little things that us as a team can can focus in on during the game and get done which is gonna help us win and — it’s just a little list of things that we look at every day.”
That list exemplifies what this Oregon team is about: the little things. It cares about every shot. Every pass. Every steal. Each press conference sees the players and their coach say, “This is how we can be better.”
Since the team explained its goals in preseason, it’s been all business. Without its two big men, Oregon (12-3, 4-0 Pac-12) has deployed a guard-heavy lineup that dissects teams bit by bit. It’s joint-second in the Pac-12 for steals per game (8.4) and sixth for points (77.9 per game). In 2022-23, the Ducks finished with 5.6 steals per game and 70.6 points per game.
This team is every player on the roster — 15 have played minutes in 2023, tied with Cal for second-most in the Pac-12 behind Arizona State (16 players). Two true freshmen, Shelstad and Kwame Evans Jr., led the Ducks to their first conference victory of the season over USC with 21 and 22 points, respectively.
Altman shone praise on the two first-year starters after Oregon’s victory over USC in its Pac-12 opener, saying, “If you’d have told me before the season when we had Dante and Nate [Bittle] that they would [play as they have], then I would be surprised, but circumstances are such where they’re getting a lot more opportunities and and tonight they really took advantage of them.”
Shelstad’s childhood best friend, Mookie Cook, will only add to the freshman class. Cook, who battled injury through the non-conference games and made his first appearance for the Ducks against Washington on Jan. 4, was the No. 40 player in the Class of 2023, per 247Sports. What Shelstad and Evans Jr. have done ensures that he will have the chance to emerge into an environment that has already seen first-year players excel.
It’s not just those rookies who have impressed: veterans have become leaders both on and off the court. Couisnard has emerged as a guiding light in the locker room; after the Ducks’ home win over UCLA on Dec. 30, 2023, Altman said, “[Jermaine] gives us a personality — the freshmen are kind of following him; you know how hard he plays … without Dante out there, Jermaine’s the one guy with experience. You don’t come out as a freshman and know how to handle yourself and Jermaine’s trying to give them some leadership.”
That group can only improve with the return of veterans like Dante — something that appears to be inching ever closer. The ever-present Malian center adds another dimension to the Ducks’ dangerous offense, and though his time is not yet, it’s soon. He’s featured once this season, in the opener against Georgia, and posted an impressive 16 points and 21 rebounds, but hasn’t appeared since.
In the meantime, Oregon has begun Pac-12 play with a 4-0 record after finishing non-conference play 8-3, including an undefeated record at Matthew Knight Arena. It hasn’t lost with that list in the locker room, and it holds the same attitude that its players exuded in the preseason. They’re not worried about — as commentators ask after every win — how good they could be with their missing stars. They’re not worried about what the nation thinks they are. The writing has been on the wall, but it’s right now that these Ducks are ready to fight for their reputation.
