Oregon men’s basketball’s (8-9, 1-5 Big Ten) already woeful season just took another turn for the worst on the cusp of a four-game stretch against some of the best squads in the Big Ten. 

Head Coach Dana Altman confirmed that Nate Bittle, the team’s center, leading scorer (16.3 points), rebounder (6.7 rebounds) and rim protector (2.3) would be sidelined for “at least” a month. This comes as the Ducks have struggled to replace the production of injured secondary scorer and starting point guard Jackson Shelstad, who will also remain sidelined for the upcoming stretch. 

“It’s not good,” Altman said about Bittle’s injury. “He hurt his lower body. He drove in, went down and tried to play on it, but you could tell when we started the second half that it was bothering him.”

According to Altman, Bittle picked up a lower body injury during the second offensive play of the Ducks’ loss to Nebraska. Altman mentioned he’ll be in a boot for the immediate future and that he will be out a significant amount of time. 

While Bittle remained healthy for the majority of the 2024-25 season, he missed time in each of his three seasons, most notably when he sat for almost the entirety of the 2023-24 season due to a gastrointestinal illness. 

Due to these untimely knocks to key pieces of the offense, Altman noted that the play calling will be limited without Bittle. The most important part about replacing Bittle’s production was that he shot 12 field goals and five free throws a game, which each rank second on the team. 

The only obvious solution to that issue would be for Takai Simpkins, Kwame Evans Jr and Wei Lin to take more shots, which is not guaranteed to improve things. The Ducks haven’t been able to score efficiently without Shelstad, and with the absence of the threat of Bittle, a center who can shoot 3-pointers, options will dry up quickly.

Without a solidified point guard, when those options aren’t available, there is no concrete way for the team to get back on track. 

“It’s a character check for us. I thought we gave in during the second half without Nate,” Altman said. “I challenged them in practice, we gotta show some character here. You’re judged at how you handle adversity, and with our two two preseason all-conference players and leading scorers out, how are we gonna handle that?” 

Defensively, this is a team coming off allowing No. 8 Nebraska to shoot 17-36 (47%) from beyond the arc, making the future without Bittle much worse. The perimeter defense, which already didn’t use the advantage of having an elite rim protector in Bittle to fall back on, now cannot trust the interior to clean up their miscues. 

“Our perimeter defense has been a problem all year,” Altman said. “We don’t have a defensive stopper. We’ve had trouble with the small forward spot and the big guard spot getting stops. Our recognition on (Nebraska’s Pryce Sandfort and Braden Frager), who hit 14 threes, was not good. We’re gonna have to get better.”

Looking ahead to the Ducks’ upcoming matchup against the No. 4 Michigan Wolverines, Altman recognizes his team will need to play much tougher and more physical in order to hang with the highest-ranked team in the Big Ten. 

“We’re not going to get into a track meet with (Michigan) with their depth and talent. We definitely don’t want to go up and down,” Altman said. “They run on makes and run on misses, so our transition defense is gonna have to be really good. We can’t give up easy baskets in transition.”

The Wolverines boast the third-best scoring offense in the country, which averages 93.8 points per game and is led by forwards Yaxel Lendeborg (14.6 points, 6.9 rebounds, 1.4 blocks) and Morez Johnson Jr. (14.3 points, 7.1 rebounds, 1.3 blocks). Michigan has five players that average double-digit points, and three players that average around seven rebounds a game (the third being center Aday Mara with a team-leading 7.5 per game). 

Facing the first game without its two most productive offensive players, Oregon will practically need to pull off a miracle in order to stop its current three-game skid. That game will tip off at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday at Matthew Knight Arena.