When University of Southern California’s Iaroslav Niagu was passed the ball at the top of the three point line in the middle of a transition, he saw an open lane toward the basket. As he drove to the basket, Keeshawn Barthelemy came behind him on his right side, attempting to swipe the ball away, forcing Naigu to go to his left.
Then N’Faly Dante came up right behind him. The center twisted his body while in the air to face the ball and swatted it away before it was too late.
Following the block, while the Ducks were in transition, Will Richardson held the ball at the top. His left-hand dribble drive pulled three defenders, and as he got closer to the basket, a fourth one stopped right in front of him. He wrapped his body around Niagu for a jump pass to Dante. Dante planted his feet and threw it into the basket while hanging onto the rim.
“We’re starting to get used to riding the hot hand,” Richardson said following the USC game. “They went to a zone, so we just fed N’Faly a couple different times. Once it was working, we just went back to it.”
Richardson managed the floor well that game, with a total of 16 points, nine assists and six rebounds. Dante finished with a team-high 17 points, shooting 8-11 from the free-throw line and five rebounds. When these two have a good game, the end result tends to be in favor of the Ducks. When they’re off, the entire team seems to lose their rhythm, similar to what happened in the following game against No. 4 UCLA.
It makes sense, as head coach Dana Altman and his staff have been working to build this team around Richardson and Dante the past two years. Through recruiting, play style and game plans, it has shown that these two are the center of attention.
Coming out of high school, Richardson became a guard who’s able to play at different speeds when crashing towards the basket, which reflected his smart decision making and versatility. In certain scenarios, he’ll just attack the defender off of the dribble to get closer to scoring. Even though he’s able to create shot opportunities for his other teammates, he has a good enough range that defenders are guarding him at all spots on the floor.
The small errors that he showed in high school, like control and reigning in his aggression, slowly started to disappear when he arrived in Eugene.
At Sunrise Christian Academy in Wichita, Kansas, Dante was ranked as the No.1 player in the state and No. 15 ranked nationally. With a long presence around the rim, he ran the court well that was paired with an average skill set protecting the rim. He started to develop a solid mid-range game, but most of his offense was tip ins, put backs, and dunks.
Ultimately, he was one of the most impactful recruits in his class, and after committing to Oregon, he was the fifth best prospect in program history.
Throughout his time in Eugene, Dante has dealt with nagging injuries. Last season was the first time we saw him close to healthy after he entered last pre-season rehabbing an ACL tear. Now, he’s played in more games this season than he has in previous years. Even in the limited games he played in, he showed electricity, which made people excited since Oregon hasn’t had a true center in a long time before he arrived.
“Dante is the first one at practice, last one to leave,” Altman said. “The two-and-a-half years prior to this, he just hasn’t been healthy. It’s hard to put in a lot of work when you got tendinitis in your knee or you’re working a year to overcome an ACL tear.”
While under Payton Pritchard and Chris Duarte’s wing, Richardson was a strong compliment piece to the team since he didn’t have that pressure of leading it. But when he needed to, he would step up, making fans excited about a future built around him.
During the 2019-20 season, the team struggled during pre-season games. Once conference play started, they started to look like a team that was going to make a deep-tournament run. Pritchard and Duarte were preparing for the NBA draft and playing at a very high level while Richardson and Dante were getting ready to take over the team.
Once the takeover started, it didn’t go as planned. While they were adjusting to being the leaders of the team, they faced some on-and-off the court issues that placed some hurdles along the way.
After testing the NBA waters following last season, Richardson announced in June 2022 that he would withdraw from the draft and join the Ducks for one more year. After Pritchard graduated, he was expected to take the reins, but he struggled to maintain the same consistency that Pritchard brought to the Ducks.
But this season, we finally saw them starting to mesh. Richardson had a different leadership style than before, and it started to rub off on his teammates, and since Dante wasn’t dealing with injuries, the Ducks had two major pieces that they’ve been waiting to have at the same time.
“The most important part about being a leader is doing it every day,” Richardson said. “Whether my life is going good, or not, just making sure I’m coming here to do what I gotta do and lead the team.”
They’re able to command both sides of the court and specifically building around a center and a point guard, all aspects of the floor are covered. Because Richardson and Dante both have creative styles of play for their positions, they each bring a variety of skill sets that teams struggle to keep up with once they find their groove.
With everything that they provide to the Ducks, they’re a solid, reliable core that will always deliver a good, fully-rounded game.
But when it comes to building around certain key players, there’s always a downside.
There are always worries about injuries, something that both Dante and Richardson have dealt with recently. Since the Ducks heavily rely on these two, opposing teams are able to build specific game plans around them, which is a huge disadvantage to Oregon since they don’t have a consistent player who will provide all-around game play for them.
Throughout the season, they’ve shown that it depends on the night on who’s going to show up. In the last four games, Richardson’s shooting percentage has dropped significantly, but Dante and Jermaine Cousinard have stepped up and led the team in scoring.
Entering the Pac-12 tournament and holding onto their March Madness hopes after beating Oregon State at the end of the season with a buzzer beater and Dante’s career-high 18 rebounds, the team will look to keep this momentum going while trying to get other players involved. After this season, Oregon will have the No. 8 recruiting class in the nation coming to Eugene. With both Richardson and Dante gone, we can only hope that they transition smoothly.
