Oregon Must Overcome Nagging Inconsistency With L.A. Schools Coming to Town This Week

You know you've had a strong tenure at Oregon when a 17-10 season is considered a "down year." The 2021-2022 version of the Ducks have been as uncharacteristically up and down as any team in Dana Altman's tenure.

It's not as if Altman hasn't had teams like this before — a mixture of returners with experienced transfer portal additions. It feels like a new team every season, but this team has not consistently played to the level that it's capable of, and Altman acknowledged this on Wednesday.

"It's been a frustrating year for the players," Altman said. "They want to compete at a higher level, and for whatever reason, we just haven't been able to get that done."

This past weekend in Arizona was the epitome of the Ducks' variability this season. They walked into Tempe and were drilled by Arizona State, a team that's a long shot for any postseason hopes outside of the Pac-12 Tournament. Two nights later, they were one possession away from taking the No. 3 Arizona Wildcats to overtime in their own building.

"We maybe played our best game against Arizona and it wasn't good enough," Altman said. "We were awful two nights earlier against Arizona State, and that's been kind of the theme of our season. We've just been really inconsistent."

If you listen to Altman speak after games, you'll notice a common trend — he absolutely hates getting out-rebounded. He's always made it an emphasis to work hard on the glass, and he said that the Ducks' rebounding efforts have contributed to the overall inconsistency this season.

"We go into Arizona and they're almost a +10 rebounding team and we out-rebound them, and two nights before against Arizona State, they're a -7 rebounding team and we get out-rebounded," Altman said. "Those kinds of stats just don't make any sense."

While the effort for the Ducks was there in Tucson, Altman said that keeping close with the No. 3 team in the country doesn't mean anything without the win.

"I don't mean to sound arrogant or anything, but there's no moral victories for our program," he said. "We go and play Arizona close, and like I said we beat them seven times in a row. I told the guys, 'Hey, I'm mad at you because you just showed me what you could do and we haven't done it every night out. We haven't shown that consistency that we take pride in here.'"

Altman said the Ducks were disappointed and "down" after the loss to Arizona inevitably, but they've practiced hard this week in preparation for their final home stand against No. 12 UCLA and No. 16 USC.

"I think our guys are excited about the weekend," Altman said. "We know we got two ranked teams coming in, and I think we'll get ready for it, we'll bow up, and we'll fight our tails off."

The Ducks may be on the outside looking into the bubble right now in the latest NCAA tournament projections, but sweeping UCLA and USC, twice, while both teams were ranked, would be a bright spot on their resumé that most bubble teams probably won't have.

But the Ducks must find consistency in the final four weeks of the season. They must win out to give themselves a sniff at an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament, although that ship has likely sailed after the sweep in the desert.

The sentiment has often been in recent years to never count out Altman and his teams toward the end of the season, and while this team has yet to find its identity even in mid-February, they still have a small window to put it all together and make a run in March. They just have to focus on what they can control.

"When you're playing 31 games, it's kind of hard to look at the whole season. You just look at the next one, and I hope that's what the guys are focused on," Altman said. "Because, obviously, if we play well and we beat UCLA, then that gives us an opportunity to swing away at USC and see what we can do. But it all starts with UCLA on Thursday night."

Join the Community

Follow Dylan on Twitter: @drksportsnews

Subscribe to our free newsletter to get the latest Oregon Ducks news sent to your inbox

Join the discussion on our Forums HERE

Add us as a preferred source on Google