The Rubik's Cube Left Unsolved: Oregon Falls Short of Lofty Expectations

It's no secret that Dana Altman has brought the Oregon men's basketball program to heights it hadn't seen in several generations. He's taken teams that many media pundits would write off as a middle-of-the-pack deep into the NCAA tournament.

But in the 2021 season, expectations for the Ducks felt even higher than most, especially with the reloaded roster that Altman and his staff assembled, setting up the Ducks, ideally, to "win now."

They recruited several starters from Power Five programs via the transfer portal, one of the top JUCO players in the country, and elite prep prospects to Eugene, to combine with the talent and experience they already had on the roster.

But throughout the season, consistency was never maintained, and the fate for the Ducks in the postseason has been set — the NIT, far from where many would have predicted Oregon to end up back in October.

Dana Altman & Eric Williams Jr.

Altman was candid following the Ducks' loss to Colorado in the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday about their shortcomings this season.

"We won 19 games, and we should have won more. I can't be any more blunt about that," Altman said. "We were talented enough. We were experienced enough. We had some nagging injuries in the summer and through the year, but nothing that should have taken away from what we should have accomplished.

"We've tried to set a standard at Oregon that we try to meet, and I just felt like for the first time in a long time that we didn't meet that standard."

Oregon had 11 seasons with at least 20 wins in its 103 seasons before Dana Altman took over prior to the 2010-11 campaign. Altman has led the Ducks to 11 straight 20-win seasons and is one NIT win away from a 12th.

That’s the standard of Oregon basketball. While this year's team isn't far from continuing that streak, it shouldn't have taken until the NIT to reach that point.

Jacob Young

The circumstances around this season from the outside were not new for an Altman-led Oregon team. Every season, especially in the past five years, the coaching staff shuffles the deck, bringing in transfers and freshmen to give the Ducks an ever-changing identity, much the same as we see across college basketball.

Perhaps the last time Oregon kept its starting lineup the same for consecutive seasons, it wound up in the Final Four in 2017. But while the Ducks haven't been back to that stage since, Altman and his staff haven't struggled getting new talent acclimated like this.

Altman said the frustrations started in the summer, when injuries to N'Faly Dante, Quincy Guerrier and Franck Kepnang caused fall practice to start slowly.

"Everything just started slow, and we just never caught up," Altman said. "It shows you how important the summer is, especially when you bring in new guys. Those are excuses, but when you talk about frustration... the guys are talented, and we just never had a good summer. The fall started off, and the trust factor wasn't there."

Altman remarked that the team "didn't click the way I wanted to," and the trajectory of the season will back up that claim. The Ducks started 6-6, with embarrassing losses to BYU, Houston, and Arizona State forcing the team to regroup.

A 10-1 stretch from before Christmas to mid-February put the Ducks right back in the bubble conversation, especially with a historic weekend in Los Angeles against then No. 3 UCLA and No. 5 USC.

But over the final 15 games, the Ducks were just 7-8. This is the first time in the Altman era that the Ducks have lost eight games after the calendar flipped to February. Just for perspective, the Ducks had a winning percentage of 70.9% during the months of February and March in the Altman era before this season.

Dana Altman

February is always when the "Rubik's Cube," apropos to Jon Rothstein, begins to be solved and the Ducks play their best basketball, no matter how they performed in the first three months of the regular season.

While many wrote off the Ducks after their poor start this season, some remained optimistic that it was all part of the Altman formula, and he would just continue to work his sorcery and lead the Ducks to a deep run in March.

But it just never happened. Whether it be due to the injuries, poor shooting, lethargy on both sides of the ball, or miscommunication between teammates, this team was uncharacteristic of Altman's teams throughout the year.

Despite the struggles, Oregon still has something left to play for in March, and Altman was direct when asked about motivating a team that fell well short of expectations.

"If they're competitors, they'll want to put the 'O' on," Altman said. "I'd be really disappointed if they didn't. We had aspirations of going to the Rose Bowl, and we're going to the Weed-Eater Bowl. You have an opportunity to put Oregon on your chest. If that doesn't mean anything to you, then there's a lot of guys out there that are disappointed.

"We're not too good to play in the NIT. It's still an honor. And it isn't the NCAA Tournament. I'm not going to try to convince them of that. But it's an opportunity to play, and if you're a competitor, the opportunity to play should mean a great deal to you, and I would hope that an opportunity to play for the University of Oregon in any type of postseason would mean something to them."

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