Eighty days. That’s how long it had been since Oregon’s two 7-foot centers, N’Faly Dante and Nate Bittle, played a competitive game together. On Thursday night, both started as the Ducks (14-5, 6-5 Pac-12) stopped their skid with an 80-61 victoryover the Arizona State University Sun Devils (11-8, 5-3 Pac-12). After consecutive losses on its road trip through Boulder and Salt Lake City, the Ducksneeded a victory — and the returning duo boosted head coach Dana Altman’s team to just that.
Dante (16 pts, six reb, three blocks), in his fourth game since returning to the lineup, continued to improve. He’s averaged 13.5 points per game in that time — a respectable tally given that he’s coming back into shape and form after months off the court — but perhaps more important is the leadership and mentality that he brings. After missing crucial free throws at the end of the Ducks’ loss at Utah on Jan. 21, he returned to practice with a jovial attitude and big smile. To boot, he went 4-4 from the line on Thursday. That’s what Oregon needs down the stretch — a leader.
Bittle, meanwhile, found the net from three under a minute into the game — his first shot. It put Oregon in the driver’s seat early, though the Ducks wouldn’t hang onto it for much of the first half. Bittle exited the game almost immediately, heading back to the locker room but returning soon after. Altman said postgame, “We were hoping to get [Nate] 10 or 15 minutes – just getting back on the floor, getting used to being out there… It’s going to be that way for a while, but that size — I think it’ll help us once we get everybody on the same page.”
Oregon evidently benefited from the ability to play to a big man — Dana Altman mentioned in practice on Tuesday that, “We’ve got a bad habit of just watching [Dante] — we’ve got to do a better job looking for him.” With Bittle available to spell the 7-foot Malian center, the Ducks are able to sustain that tactic rather than adapting with Dante on the bench or out of the game. Altman said postgame on Thursday, “Dante was offensively very efficient — take off the turnovers (he had four) [and] he had a tremendous game. The guys are continuing to look for him… Getting [Dante] and Nate back and working them into the rotation is going to be very important for us.”
That doesn’t mean that Oregon can’t perform outside of playing to its big men: both Jermaine Couisnard and Keeshawn Barthelemy posted double-digit points in the win — and Couisnard led the team. It’s a style of play that the Ducks had to rely on whilst Dante and Bittle were unavailable, but they can lean on it now in times of adversity.
Altman said postgame, “Going into the season, we thought that depth was going to be one of our big strengths… [Injuries] held us back, but now that we get people back [and] integrated, I hope that depth will be important.” That counts for the Ducks at the 5, but too across the court. 11 players saw time on Thursday, and seven registered at least five points.
One of those players was Kwame Evans Jr., who Altman touched on in his postgame press conference as an example of “unselfishless.” He said, “K.J. really wants to help the team. He came to me — he wasn’t playing really good — and said, ‘Coach, I just need to come off the bench and try to get something going,’ and I just like that unselfishness.” Evans came off the Oregon bench against the Sun Devils to the tune of eight points, three rebounds, and three assists — he got “something” going.
That diversity in style will be important down the stretch: Oregon faces No. 9 Arizona on Saturday, and while both of his centers will almost certainly see important minutes, it might just be everyone else that decides whether Dana Altman’s team can remain top of the conference. Barthelemy put it best in his postgame availability, where he said, “We had some great veteran leadership today and Saturday might be somebody else. We’re always ready to play everybody — one through 15 — and today our vets stepped up.” With nearly everyone healthy, the Ducks are confident that any among them, deep in the woods, can (and will) lead this team.
