Ducks Attack Message Board Forum

We are sitting at #39 right now. (for reference we were #82 at the end of last season).

The Pac-12 is strong at the top with UCLA at #3 and Arizona at #9.

ASU/Oregon/Utah/Colorado are the early mid-tier teams.


As far as more specific to Oregon.

Strengths: 2pt % offense, blocking shots, not fouling a lot on defense
Weaknesses: Turnovers, FT shooting, 3 point shooting, and forcing turnovers.

There's some good news IMO in the weaknesses. The majority of our turnovers are "unforced" in variety. We are 300+ in the nation in that category!!! Worst in the Altman tenure. However, I think most of that is due to the complete lack of continuity between players due to the injuries.

Similarly, with Rigsby healthy and others returning to health, I think our 3pt shooting % will go up. Outside of last season, it's been a pretty consistent thing under Altman that we will shoot better as the season goes on.

Cousinard should also help in forcing turnovers in our press, as he's a high end defender. We also haven't been able to press very much simply because we're trying not to get tired.

I project that we will end the season as a top 20 defensive team nationally. Possibly top 10-15 if everyone can get back healthy.

The key is going to be cutting down on TO's and increasing our FT/3pt % on offense, otherwise our top end is reasonably limited as a team. Excited to see where we end up though. I think that we got the better of an ELITE team like UCLA for about 3/4 of that game shows we can compete with anyone.

Go Ducks!

You can already see with more players available, their assist and shooting percentages are up and their defensive intensity is a lot higher. I think their turnover issues will improve once they get more consistent ball handlers and scorers to help out Richardson and Dante, who've been facing near constant double teams as opponents try to force others to beat them. As for defense, the lack of bodies has made them play zone more often and they were basically trying to force bad shots with their length and quickness instead of actually trying to force turnovers.

We are actually in really good shape considering our record. We are sitting at No. 52 in the NET ranking and are in the "First Four Out" category in the latest bracketology. That is because we have no bad losses and our strength of schedule is very good. Every team we have lost to so far is Q1 or Q2 and is projected in the field of 68.

We don't have any Q1 wins, so we are going to have to collect a couple of those in conference play, but if we can get healthy, finish in the Top 4 in the conference and pick up a few wins against AZ, Utah, ASU, UCLA or Colorado, we should have a very good shot to get back to the tournament.

I don’t see this team making the tournament unless we win the PAC-12 tournament. Regardless of Kenyon
State.

We will probably finish PAC-12 play around .500, and no way a 15 loss Oregon team makes the tournament.