Oregon’s Dana Altman and Big Ten media day: 3 things we learned about the Ducks

Oregon head coach Dana Altman takes a question at the podium Thursday during the 2024 Big Ten Men’s Basketball media day in Rosemont, Ill.

The Oregon men’s basketball team left the Pac-12 as the conference tournament champion.

The Ducks will soon find out if they can recreate that level of success in their new conference.

The 2024-25 season begins for Oregon on Nov. 4 with a game against UC Riverside at Matthew Knight Arena, and the Ducks have a team with six new players – five transfers, one freshman – and needing to replace star center N’Faly Dante and guard Jermaine Couisnard, whose late-season heroics lifted the Ducks during the conference tournament in Las Vegas last March and also to a win in their opening game of the NCAA Tournament.

Coach Dana Altman and his two grad transfers — forward Brandon Angel and guard T.J. Bamba — took part in Big Ten media day Thursday at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center just outside Chicago.

Here are three takeaways from their interviews.

Oregon is going through preseason practices with a full roster

If that doesn’t bring you a sigh of relief, you haven’t been following along the last few seasons.

Offseason, preseason and early season injuries have plagued the Ducks in recent years.

Last season, Oregon was without Jackson Shelstad and Mookie Cook on opening night and by Thanksgiving had already lost Dante and Nate Bittle.

“Everybody is healthy now, which is a change for us,” Altman said. “Last four years have been kind of rough on our health. … I like our competitiveness in practice, and right now we’re healthy. If we can stay that way, I like our depth.”

Point guard Jackson Shelstad looks like an improved player

The sophomore was named second-team all-conference in the Gannett preseason media poll and Altman said Shelstad comes back bigger and stronger than what he was as a college basketball rookie last season.

“That jump from freshman to sophomore, that’s usually as coach the biggest jump you see because they have a good feel…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/oregons-dana-altman-big-ten-192808454.html

Author : The Register-Guard

Publish date : 2024-10-03 19:28:08

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