[ad_1]
INDIANAPOLIS – The sellers of Ben’s pretzels packed for the night just after halftime in the lower lobby of Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The same was true of two women who worked in the NCAA pop-up store.
They folded stacks of dedicated “Sweet 16” T-shirts for teams good enough to advance this far in the NCAA Men’s Tournament. The Oregon-USC was the night cap and in anticipation of a run on cardinal and gold shirts as fans left the arena, workers kept a stack of Trojan horse shirts nearby.
Oregon’s green shirts?
One was left hanging on the screen, but the rest was placed in a cardboard box. That pretty much sums up the last breath of a tired basketball season for Dana Altman’s team. A team that knows it needs a big transformation.
USC crushed Oregon 82-68 on Sunday.
Altman stepped onto the pitch as the final seconds of the season rolled by. He turned to USC coach Andy Enfield and waved his hand. Then Altman raised his fist at his counterpart as if to say, “Go finish this thing.”
A few minutes later, Altman confessed, “They outdid us. They beat us.
Perhaps it is a consolation today that the Ducks are coming from a conference that put three teams in the Elite Eight. It will also sting that Oregon – the Pac-12 regular season champion – is not one of them. But on Sunday, the sixth seed USC was simply longer, bigger and better. The Trojans made the # 7 ducks look out of place.
Altman has already ended basketball seasons in sour places. Disappointment is really part of coaching. In 2015, for example, his team was eliminated in the Sweet 16. The following season, the Ducks returned and reached the Elite Eight. A year later, Altman cut the nets for the regional championship and made the Final Four. As we watched the Oregon players move into the offseason, I wondered if this was a schedule about to be eclipsed by the rest of the conference … or maybe a schedule ready to go. transform.
USC remains in Indianapolis and will continue to play. The same goes for UCLA. Oregon’s rival, Oregon State, has made long-term home and will play Houston on Monday for a trip to the Final Four. But the Ducks and those $ 32 NCAA-themed t-shirts are headed for a less glamorous fate. One of them ends up a few blocks from the discount gallery around the corner and the other gets on a plane and goes home.
How will Oregon return next season?
Bigger, I bet.
This is what it will take to participate in this new-age Pac-12 conference. The Trojans spoke last week about how they believed Oregon robbed them of the regular season championship. Isaiah Mobley said it point blank, even. Then, on game day, his younger brother punctuated the entire evening with a thunderous late dunk that left USC’s other four starters on the floor recoiling, patting the tops of their heads and laughing.
Did Altman and his team notice it? I bet they did. And if they missed it, a few possessions later there was another rim rattle.
Soak. Soak.
Completed.
Altman will figure this out. He still does. Anyone who has watched this team for long stretches will know that the Ducks had excellent perimeter play, but lacked a meaningful inside presence. Opponents over-played the three-point line and made life difficult for Chris Duarte and Will Richardson in particular.
There was no one like ex-Duck Chris Boucher on this list. Not even a Bowl Bowl. I wondered then that the young Mobley – who measures 1.80 meters – was wearing down the rims if Altman was already thinking: “How much can Franck Kepnang be for us next season?”
He signed up early in Oregon, remember? Altman tried to speed up Kepnang in the rotation. It wasn’t enough, however. Next season, Oregon will need Kepnang to be more than an honorable conference player. Additionally, Nathan Bittle – a five-star newcomer who draws comparisons to Boucher – will be in uniform at Eugene. The Ducks could potentially have four players, including injured N’Faly Dante, taller than 6-10 in uniform next season.
What I’m saying is Oregon will be different in 2021-2022.
It really has to.
I asked an NBA scout on the eve of the Sweet 16 game why Altman is so good at what he does. He’s won the Pac-12 regular season championship four times in six seasons. Is it his stubborn focus on the fundamentals? Recruit angles? Something else? The answer came: “He doesn’t take himself very seriously, yet takes his job very seriously.”
Altman’s assistants scour the planet for talent – from Canada to the Dominican Republic. Then, once he has them on campus, Altman focuses on the little things. In the first half, for example, Altman bent his knees on the sideline, shoulder-width apart, raised his hands and adopted a nice defensive posture. It was the last game of the season and he was there teaching. But in the end, Oregon looked for much of the night like it was playing five on six.
“We still dug too big a hole (in the first half),” said Altman.
Then he wandered down a burrow of humility, taking responsibility for errors on the field and bad play. The truth is, Oregon had no answer to USC’s athleticism and size.
What Altman has done better than most college coaches is simply reinventing his program. Year after year. Season after season. He used transfers, then freshmen, and by the end of the day he seems to be more set on some kind of mix of experience and talent. But I suspect that next season we’ll see the Ducks play some of their biggest basketball in program history.
USC is getting help on this. The Enfield team is forcing Oregon to adapt. The same goes for UCLA and maybe the state of Oregon as well. The Pac-12 has 37.5% of the remaining teams in the NCAA Men’s tournament bracket. Seven of the remaining eight teams are located west of the Mississippi. There has been a noticeable change in power. Altman will not be left behind.
As the Oregon players left the field on Sunday, a few of them turned to face the field. Some of them hugged and left. This season has been a difficult time. The Ducks haven’t just won games and advanced, they’ve done it while being quarantined, battling a pandemic, breathing through masks, and trying to make the most of things.
In a year, they might have a chance to be better. But without a doubt, they will be much bigger.
—
Email: [email protected]
Subscribe to John Canzano’s weekly newsletter.
Twitter: @JohnCanzanoBFT
[ad_2]
Source link