Oregon men’s basketball weathers injuries, in first place in Pac-12 at season’s midpoint

For a second straight season, Oregon has been riddled with injuries. But unlike a year ago, when the Ducks were 8-7 overall and 2-2 in Pac-12 play after 15 games and Dana Altman was later taking solo drives to Roseburg and back to clear his mind and conjure up ways to get the Ducks to play better, this year’s team has managed to weather its various ailments and finds itself in first place in the Pac-12. Oregon (12-3, 4-0 Pac-12) has had half of its 12 scholarship players available for every game this season, while the other half have missed between two games (Keeshawn Barthelemy) and 14 games (N’Faly Dante).

Yet the Ducks’ health continues to improve, with freshman Mookie Cook making his debut last weekend and Dante likely to return Saturday (5 p. m. , Pac-12 Network) against Cal.

“Last year it seemed like one week somebody was practicing and then the next week they weren’t,” said guard Brennan Rigsby, who missed 15 games last season with an ankle injury but played every game this season. “So everybody was out of rhythm. Where this year, yeah we have people go down but it seemed like when they went down it was just them.

So we had players out there the whole time that they got their rhythm and they kept it instead of play a couple of games then they’re out for five, play a couple of games, out of five. “Then you’re trying to play with each other brand new times. I didn’t play with Jermaine (Couisnard) till January last year.

” Rigsby and Couisnard are two examples of how injuries impacted UO differently a year ago. A top junior college transfer, Rigsby averaged 4. 2 points and 2.

3 rebounds and shot just 27. 7% from three last season compared to 8. 2 points, 2.

5 rebounds and 46. 8% from behind the arc this season. Couisnard averaged 12.

1 points, 3. 1 rebounds and 2. 2 assists and shot 39.

9% from the field after missing the first 14 games recovering from left knee surgery and later suffered a shoulder injury. He’s averaging 13. 6 points, 5.

3 rebounds, 2. 5 assists and 2. 0 steals while shooting 44.

1% from the field this season and Altman considers him the team’s leader. Altman said this year’s team is “coachable” and been easy to work with while having to play small by necessity. Still, he was not sure how the Ducks would handle being without Dante and then Nate Bittle, leaving only Stetson transfer Mahamadou Diawara at center.

“I try not to think ahead and you try not to get pessimistic,” Altman said. “You got to be real though. We were small and Mo hadn’t played much and I didn’t know what we had there.

I thought he did a good job. (Kwame Evan Jr. )’s come along and I didn’t know if that would happen.

At the time we didn’t have Jackson (Shelstad); he was out for 4-5 weeks there. I didn’t know, we were kind of banking on Jesse (Zarzuela) and then he went out. “To be real honest I didn’t know what was going to happen.

Came to practice every day with six, seven, eight guys, whatever we had on scholarship and fortunately (James Cooper)’s been great, Gabe (Reichle)’s been unbelievable. Guys have been good; our walk-ons have done a tremendous job of giving us something to look at every day. I didn’t know how it would go.

” Allowing 88 and 99 points in losses to Santa Clara and Alabama, respectively, at the Emerald Coast Classic in late November didn’t boost Altman’s confidence. But since then Oregon defeated Michigan in overtime in front of the largest home crowd since the 2018-19 finale to begin a stretch of eight wins in nine games. “After we got home and got a few things straight,” Altman said.

“Then Mo started coming on a little bit, so the guys have done a good job. “All we’ve done is just won a couple of games; we’re not even at the halfway point of the season. Hopefully Nate and Dante can give us a bump here if they can get healthy.

” The Ducks have moved from 82 in the initial NET rankings and 72 prior to last weekend’s games, to as high as 47 this week and 51 as of Friday. With Dante practicing this week and likely to return on Saturday, Oregon will soon have its leading scorer and rebounder from last season back. His ability to protect the rim and presence in the paint is much needed for the Ducks, who are averaging only a plus-2 rebounding margin.

“You guys know and I know to be where we need to be we can’t play smallball the rest of the year and be successful,” Altman said. “We’ve got to play big teams like Arizona and Colorado’s got some size, Utah’s got size. We’ve gotten away with it but to be where we want to be and try to get to where we want to be — going into the season we had one all-conference player.

He was that for that for a reason. I’m not saying these other guys haven’t played well and done a good job, because they have, but Dante is still Dante. He’s still got 15 points, 60% (shooting) with getting double-teamed every time he caught it last year and almost nine rebounds.

“When we won big games, Dante played well. ” With 10 of its remaining 16 games in Quadrants 1 and 2, Oregon’s big games this season are rapidly approaching. .