This Oregon men’s basketball story wanted to be trendy.
Five games in, it wanted to cite head coach Dana Altman’s offseason maneuvers as the key to this team’s championship hopes. It wanted to praise the depth, laud the potential, and go bananas over the bench.
Who doesn’t want to trumpet the fun of Jackson Shelstad, the maturity of Jadrian Tracey, the physicality of a healthy Supreme Cook or the savvy of Nate Bittle?
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
This Ducks’ start of the season story wanted to be trendy, it really did, but that approach could only survive all of a few words.
205 minutes into the season and we know next to nothing about this Oregon team. The Ducks were bad, but good enough to win, and there’s still few absolutes to take away.
Yes, Dana Altman can still get his team to perform in the clutch. Yes, the more talented — and more handsomely paid team — will often prevail, especially early in the season.
And yes, Oregon is 5-0 — the only thing that really matters — after Shelstad and Bittle’s late-game heroics pushed the Ducks over Oregon State Thursday night at Gill Coliseum.
But the truth is other than that there hasn’t been much to take away from the early going of 2024.
“We have so many areas to improve,” Altman said.
Areas like how after playing their most complete game of the year in a win over Troy, the Ducks looked hapless for 20 minutes against OSU. They were outrebounded 20 to 13 in the first half of action and 38 to 30 overall, effort and execution issues Altman was sure to harp on postgame.
“We made so many defensive mistakes. Doubling off the wrong guys. No discipline defensively. It was an embarrassing first half of defense, and they made us pay for every single one of them.”
For almost 3/4 of the game, the two teams weren’t even in the same league.
OSU was more determined on defense, more active in transition and more willing to get to the basket. The Ducks finished the game with 12 free throws attempted, zero of which came in the first half. Meanwhile, Oregon State rode slick passing and a 15-point half from Michael Rataj to take a 10-point halftime lead..
“Till the 14-minute mark, they controlled the game,” Altman said. “They beat us on the boards. It was 13-0 in second-chance points, points off turnovers, and they were dominating. We got that turned around 12-2 in the second half, which was the difference in the game.”
Oregon was terrible … then finally turned it up against a less-talented squad, going on a 10-0 run and jumping ahead on a Shelstad 3-pointer with 5:25 remaining.
“It’s just a good team win,” Bittle said.
Time to celebrate? On Thursday it was, with Bittle yelling “This is my state” after grabbing a rebound as time expired. For at least the next year it is, that much we do know.
But aside from that there isn’t much else to take away from this early slate of games (all of which came against mid-major teams).
Kwame Evans Jr., who looked to have had his breakout game with 23 points in the season opener played eight minutes and is yet to score in double figures again. TJ Bamba, who was brought in as a main scorer — and averaged 12.3 points in his first four games — didn’t hit a shot from the field.
Lucky for the Ducks, we also know Shelstad (15 points) can bring it when it matters most.
“I was just trying to trust my work,” Shelstad said. “Every good shooter goes through some shooting slumps. My teammates tell me to keep shooting; my coaches keep telling me to keep shooting.”
Altman shared a similar sentiment: “He should play with confidence, he’s in the gym all the time.”
Altman then went on to list a number of stats — Keeshawn Barthelemy’s total games played from last year being 17 and the Ducks trailing by 12 with 13:45 remaining.
Those digits are true, yes, but the only number that matters for now is the Ducks are 5-0. Everything else might as well be a crapshoot.
