#16 Oregon @ UCLA (Thu 7:30 PM, FS1)

[GDuck]

Oregon is soft. Defense isn’t strong and they have a hard time against teams that play good D. Giving up offensive rebounds on FTs multiple times too.

[OregonFan4Life]

If the trajectory of this team continues then I think Altman should retire and Oregon basketball should have a fresh start. Altman doesn’t even seem to enjoy coaching anymore.

[dd10snoop28]

Down by 28. Not surprising.

Haven't watched the game, but looks like the defense continues to be abysmal based on the box screen. We are goin to get crushed the rest of the season if the defense continues like this.

[Everythingsducky]

If the trajectory of this team continues then I think Altman should retire and Oregon basketball should have a fresh start. Altman doesn’t even seem to enjoy coaching anymore.

Cmon man. It is his fault if they mis-scouted players they brought in (Bamba, and possibly the most overrated 5-star recruit in Evans), but even a great coach will have down years. His string of +.500 record seasons is amongst the best ever. Don’t speculate about his psyche. You don’t know him. When he is ready to hang it up, he will. And the Ducks may suffer if he does. Hall of famer.

[OregonFan4Life]

Well if this team doesn’t turn things around and if Altman is still here next season then he needs to seriously evaluate his assistant coaches, this team is so poorly coached and Altman has been getting outcoached badly in B1G conference play. Again maybe this team turns things around but if they don’t the coaching staff’s approach to Oregon baseball needs to change.

Also Bamba is not the first time Altman and his coaching staff have Mis-evaluated a transfer guard, it’s happened actually quite frequently. I’d gladly take TJ Bamba over Elijah Brown and Jacob Young.

[greenyellow]

Just feels like after the hot start, they've hit a wall like previous Altman teams have done in late January and early February. Not going to put it past Altman and the staff to get them clicking again. I do wonder if they have the leaders to pull things together (like Couisnard and Dante last year; Duarte and Omoruyi in 2021; Pritchard, King, and Amin in 2019) when things got tough.

[droop10]

If the trajectory of this team continues then I think Altman should retire and Oregon basketball should have a fresh start. Altman doesn’t even seem to enjoy coaching anymore.

You’ve made this same rant every single season for at least the last 5-6 years, anytime they face any adversity. Again, it’s a 16-5 team with 8 quad 1 wins. You’re talking like they’re a .500 team that’s going to miss the tourney. It’s a decent team that’s hit a little bit of a slump.

[TheDrake]

Chicken Little lives on! Never gonna change!

[OregonFan4Life]

Chicken Little lives on! Never gonna change!

I knew someone like you would post something like this, and normally I ignore it but I’m too cranky. Insulting someone on an anonymous forum for having a different opinion than the majority is really lame. At least the other two posters responded to me with respectable arguments, they don’t just throw insults at me. It’s an anonymous forum, this is where discussion/arguments belong, and as a die hard Duck fan I’ll always have debates and arguments with other Duck fans. If you disagree, bring an argument at me, support Altman! But don’t just post a simple dumb insult, that doesn’t belong on forums IMO.

[OregonFan4Life]

If the trajectory of this team continues then I think Altman should retire and Oregon basketball should have a fresh start. Altman doesn’t even seem to enjoy coaching anymore.

You’ve made this same rant every single season for at least the last 5-6 years, anytime they face any adversity. Again, it’s a 16-5 team with 8 quad 1 wins. You’re talking like they’re a .500 team that’s going to miss the tourney. It’s a decent team that’s hit a little bit of a slump.

Again let’s see the what happens but I was referring to the trajectory of this team. And I know Altman teams turn it around but at a certain point in his career doesn’t he deserve blame for this January/February struggles that greatly affects postseason seeding and ultimately their chances of making a deep run?

[Duck07]

This year has the feel of a bizzaro-Altman team that instead of getting better as the season goes on, is getting worse.

The offense is ugly to watch game after game.

[Merganzer]

Again let’s see the what happens but I was referring to the trajectory of this team. And I know Altman teams turn it around but at a certain point in his career doesn’t he deserve blame for this January/February struggles that greatly affects postseason seeding and ultimately their chances of making a deep run?

I think you make several good points. The team got off to a great start that nobody expected. It has picked up some Quad 1 wins, but most of those were early in the season, before, it looks like, other teams figured out what to do against the Ducks, and so far Oregon hasn't responded. Against Minnesota, Bittle was MIA, last night, Shelstad attempted, and missed 2 shots.

Insanity is doing someting over and over and expecting a different result, that's Oregon and 3 point shooting. You can't really say Bamba and the rest of the team is in a slump, that suggests it just isn't going well right now, it's worse than that, they're the worst 3 point shooting team in the B1G, probably would be in a lot of the conferences. But the lack of ball and player movement, leaves a 3 as the only way to avoid shot clock violations.

Rebounding, especially offensive rebounding is a sign of effort, in this case, lack of. When was the last time Oregon finished with better numbers in these categories? The team liked it when they won the games at the end, until they didn't. I'm not pushing Altman out the door. But I don't remember a lot of great coaching moves during the hot start, and I definitely haven't seen any coaching strategy to fix what has gone off the rails now.

[OregonFan4Life]

The beginning of the second half last night we finally saw some movement and Oregon got some easy buckets, but that went away very quickly. The offense is just lazy and it puzzles me.

This is the worst 3 point shooting team under Altman which to me is a combo of poor roster management but also a fluke in that Shelstad, one of our best shooters last year, has regressed not only as a player but as a shooter. But outside of Barthelemy and Angel everyone on the team has an ugly looking shot. Shelstad’s shot is flat, Bittle doesn’t always square up, Bamba has no rotation, whatever assistant coach is working on shooting form is not earning his paycheck.

And I’ve been saying his entire career that Altman needs a better assistant coach specifically for big men and rebounding. Rebounding has been an issue Altman’s entire career outside of maybe a couple seasons when we had elite rebounders like Dante or Kazemi. Oregon bigs do not block out, watch this team, when a shot goes up on defense, they stand around the rim, nobody is getting a body on someone. The only player I see make an attempt at blocking out is Evans but he’s often late and gets a foul. It’s weird, it’s such a basic thing but Oregon players don’t even attempt blocking out and it’s cost Oregon NCAA tourney games (Wisconsin and North Carolina in the Final Four).

I’m aware I’m hyper critical of Altman and have been his entire career. I just feel that we should be seeing better results with the resources we have and more consistent tourney runs, and if the football team had similar results fans would be way more critical of the head coach. I’ll admit however that Altman has had some terrible luck in his career between COVID taking away a potential run from a team that seemed poised to make a deep tourney run and injuries derailing the season. I know he’s capable of turning things around but with this team/roster, it will not be easy.

[UOducksTK1]

Can the team just skip the Michigan road trip?

[OregonFan4Life]

Can the team just skip the Michigan road trip?

No kidding, I’m just hoping this team doesn’t lose to Nebraska at home on Sunday, that’d be very bad, but also with how this team has played lately, it’s very possible.