SEATTLE — Dana Altman rested one foot on the front row of bleachers under a side basket at a youth camp in Beaverton last fall as he described the various challenges of starting over with a new team.
“We’re not as physical as we need to be,” he told me that wet and gray morning. “Shot selection. Ball movement isn’t very good.”
In conclusion, he said, “We’ve just got a long ways to go.”
That was before the season began. At its finish?
The Oregon Ducks were so, so close.
To answer your question, yes, the Ducks practice free throws. C’mon.
At the end of every practice, the Ducks play a game of “40.” The team has to make 40 free throws. The catch? Each miss deducts four points from the total.
“Everybody hits them,” Kwame Evans said Sunday in the locker room after the 87-83 loss to Arizona. “It’s practice. It’s a little bit different when the lights are bright.”
The lights were bright Sunday at Climate Pledge Arena.
The Ducks missed 10 free throws in their second-round NCAA Tournament matchup with the Wildcats. They were 12 of 22.
Everybody missed. Jackson Shelstad, an 85% shooter, missed one when the Ducks trailed by four. TJ Bamba missed a pair and finished 4 of 7. Nate Bittle shot 1 of 3 and Evans was 2 of 5.
“We’ve won so many close games and we’ve hit a lot of critical free throws,” Altman said. “I was shocked that we were missing some of those.”
More discouraging than the free throws for the Ducks was the simple fact that, for the second year in a row, the Ducks advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament only to lose a game in the margins.
Maybe it was ultimately academic whether Oregon won or lost against Arizona on Sunday at Climate Pledge Arena. A Sweet 16 matchup with top overall seed Duke would have been a hard game to win — to put it mildly.
But moving on to next weekend would have pushed the program ahead from where it ended last season, when the Ducks came undone against Creighton. Their two-point lead at the end of regulation vanished after N’Faly Dante missed the first free throw of a one-and-one and the Ducks went on to lose in double overtime.
“We were right there last year,” Shelstad said.
Instead of vanquishing those demons, the Ducks, in a sense, repeated them. They wasted a 15-point first half lead and fell behind by 11 points in the second, only to see their comeback bid fall short.
They gave up 13 offensive rebounds and 11 second-chance points. Bittle, who has been one of the nation’s best centers throughout the year, was outmuscled by Arizona’s Tobe Awaka, who finished with 12 points and 14 rebounds.
After building a 19-4 lead in the game’s first five minutes — reminiscent of a 20-4 start against Liberty two nights earlier — it felt like the Ducks lost momentum for the rest of the game, including as they chipped away in the second half.
“Fools’ gold,” Altman said, of the Ducks hot start.
And while the sudden end of this season hits the Ducks hard, there is the more pressing matter of where Altman takes this program in however many more years he wants to remain at the helm. How can he lead the Ducks through the wall they have rammed into each of the past two seasons?
The Ducks worked the transfer portal well a year ago, replacing Dante and Jermaine Couisnard’s veteran leadership with Bamba, Brandon Angel and Supreme Cook. But this was the year that Shelstad truly blossomed and that Bittle was healthy enough to become the force in the middle he projected as when he was a five-star recruit out of high school.
They both should return. And that gives the Ducks an enviable foundation to build on.
Shelstad went toe-to-toe with Arizona star Caleb Love on Sunday. Love poured in 29 points, Shelstad had 25.
But the Ducks’ hopes of getting the clutch Shelstad a look at a game-tying three were twice foiled by Wildcats coach Tommy Lloyd’s strategy to foul while nursing a three-point lead.
What can Shelstad do to improve his game even more before next season? How much more of a load can he possibly carry? Who can Altman bring in to help support him?
Nearly six months after he and I spoke that morning in Beaverton, he grew emotional while talking about the end of his time with this team as currently assembled.
The transfer portal shortens the window a coach has with his team. It’s one-and-done, every year. So any season-ending loss carries more finality than it ever has before. It’s not just the end of a season, it’s the end of a team. Every year.
“That last one,” Altman said, “it always hurts.”
It hurts and then it’s back to the drawing board. To try again.
“It ain’t gonna sit well,” said Evans, “until we get back to this point.”
Who the “we” refers to is, for now, a mystery.
“I got a great staff that gets really good players for me,” Altman said, “and, you know, I love doing my job.”
That’s a good thing.
Because for as close as the Ducks were to breaking through on Sunday, they’ve got a long ways to go to get back to this point.
— Bill Oram is the sports columnist at The Oregonian/OregonLive.
