LAS VEGAS — Dana Altman, from Wilber, Neb., might be the most aw-shucks coach in college basketball.
Altman has always felt like a weird fit at Oregon, with its busy court and bright jerseys and Nike backing. But he has long been one of the best coaches in the sport, and when he has talent, his teams win.
Last season was a down year by his standards; the Ducks made the NCAA Tournament but only because they got hot late and won the Pac-12 tournament. After five straight seasons opening the year ranked, the Ducks have started the last two seasons outside the Top 25, and they did not even receive a vote in the preseason AP poll.
They’re not afterthoughts anymore. Altman has talent and depth again, and the team no one expected to win the first Players Era Festival hung around long enough in battles with Texas A&M and Alabama to be able to calmly make the plays it needed to in the end.
The Ducks are kind of like their coach — not glitzy, just simple and effective. They take good shots and don’t get rattled. During their 7-0 start, they’ve trailed in the second half of four games, including three double-digit deficits.
Seniors Nate Bittle and Keeshawn Barthelemy, who spent a good chunk of last season injured, were the stars in an upset 83-81 win over Alabama in the championship game. Barthelemy, who scored 22 points against the Crimson Tide, has given the Ducks a knockdown shooter, making 15 of his 30 3s so far. Oregon’s 3-point rate ranks 231st, which is right where Altman likes it.
“They took 38 threes,” Altman said of Alabama. “I think I’d go nuts if we took 38.”
Altman wants to play inside-out, which makes Bittle’s emergence so important. He was a five-star coming out of high school in 2021, but he was too thin to play inside as a freshman. Now listed at 240 pounds — up from 215 at the start of his college career — he’s a load in the post, a 7-foot target who holds his ground and has terrific hands.
Bittle also has the back-to-the-basket moves that make it tough to stop him one-on-one.
He can also step away and make a jumper — he’s 3 of 21 from 3, but the stroke looks good enough that defenses at least have to guard him — and he’s even more dangerous as a facilitator.
Between Bittle and Stanford transfer Brandon Ashley, Oregon’s inside tandem is scoring 1.25 points per possession on post-ups (per Synergy), giving Altman plenty of reason to want to play inside-out.
Sophomore point guard Jackson Shelstad, who has only four turnovers all season, makes sure the ball gets where it needs to go. Transfer wing TJ Bamba gives the Ducks a big, physical slasher. Senior Jadrian Tracy seemed to make timely plays all week and is the perfect glue guy. And then off the bench, Altman has a former McDonald’s All-American in sophomore forward Kwame Evans and a bruiser in fifth-year senior Supreme Cook.
Everyone fills their roles. Nothing more. Nothing less.
You’re rarely going to come away ooh-ing and aah-ing over the Ducks. They’re not elite in any one statistical category. But more often than not, it feels like this Oregon team is going to find a way to win.
And, hey, maybe they’ll even throw in a splash at the end.
Below, my other notes and takeaways from two days at the Players Era Festival.
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Houston lacks its usual defensive discipline
If college basketball games were 38 minutes long, Houston would be the No. 2 team in Division I today and we’d be talking about the Cougars’ national title prospects. Instead, Houston has blown three late leads in the season’s first month, including two overtime losses in Vegas.
The Cougars have a familiar statistical blueprint. They’re turning over opponents at a high rate, blocking a lot of shots and fouling often. The issue is the timing of the fouls and late-game judgment.
Up four on Alabama with just under two minutes left, the Cougars played perfect defense for much of the shot clock and had Mark Sears in jail with seconds ticking away. Sears lost his dribble and had nowhere to go, and Malik Wilson just needed to stay solid and force Sears to take a hard shot.
If Wilson had just shown his hands and hadn’t swatted down, Houston likely has the ball with a minute and a half left ahead by four, on their way to a win. Instead, Sears made both free throws, and it was a one-possession game.
Fast-forward to Saturday. Houston was ahead by one in overtime with just under three minutes left when transfer point guard Milos Uzan put two hands on San Diego State’s BJ Davis right in front of an official.
Easy call. Davis made both free throws, and the Aztecs took the lead.
Houston had a chance to get the ball back down two for the last possession of overtime. The Aztecs ran a pick-and-roll, and instead of staying sound, Houston junior Emanuel Sharp gambled on a steal attempt, forcing his teammates to scramble and foul Magoon Gwath.
Gwath made one free throw, and L.J. Cryer ended up missing a tough 3-pointer to tie the game. Maybe Houston loses anyway, but it’s a lot easier to run a play in that scenario when you only need two.
The other side of this is that Houston wasn’t in very many close games last season, and the loss of All-American Jamal Shead has felt like taking Isiah Thomas off the Bad Boy Pistons. But Houston, still ranked No. 5 at KenPom, may end up being what Alabama was a year ago. The Crimson Tide fell out of the Top 25 after taking their second loss of the season against Clemson on Nov. 28 and were 6-5 after a Dec. 20 loss to Arizona. But four of the five losses were to teams that went on to make the Sweet 16, and Bama, of course, went on to make the Final Four.
This isn’t the start that Houston wanted. Uzan isn’t Shead, and he’s fouling too much. But his efficiency numbers are good when he is in the game, and Houston was a couple plays away from beating the team I currently have No. 1 (Auburn) and the one I had at No. 1 in the preseason (Alabama).
KenPom was onto something with Alabama last year (the Crimson Tide never left the top 10) and still loves the Coogs. Let’s see what they look like in a month or two.
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Alabama cannot stop the ball
The story Wednesday in Vegas was the splendid play of Dylan Harper in Rutgers’ 95-90 loss to Alabama. Harper went for 37 points and lived at the rim, driving past Alabama’s guards again and again. “We had no answer at all for Dylan Harper the entire game,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said after. “We’ve got to figure our defense out. We’re not where we need to be defensively.”
While Oregon didn’t have a guard able to just carve up the Crimson Tide like Harper could, their inability to stop the ball came up again on the game’s final play. This alternative angle shows just how easily Barthelemy got to the rim.
Nate Bittle’s exclamation point on the @Players_Era championship game deserves another look 🎥@OregonMBB pic.twitter.com/pj2qAzHPfQ
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) December 1, 2024
Oats’ hope coming into the season was that, with the additions of defensive-minded players like center Clifford Omoruyi, guard Chris Youngblood and freshman Labaron Philon, this team could play the top-20 defense that seems to be required to win a national title. So far, not so much. Alabama ranks 48th in adjusted efficiency.
And while the team’s 3-point shooting (32.6 percent) and star Mark Sears’ slump have been the talking points, the offense is still plenty good enough. It’s all about defense for the Crimson Tide, and there’s still some hope because Youngblood, whom Oats raved about in the preseason, has yet to play because of an ankle injury.
I asked Oats how much Youngblood would have helped the defense after the Rutgers game.
“I would sure hope so,” he said. “He’s big, strong, tough. He’s got the right mindset. He’s all about winning. Is he quick enough to stay in front of the guy? We’ll see. But mentally he’s going to want to. He’s not going to be happy if he’s getting beat. I mean, he’s one of the most competitive kids I’ve ever coached in my life. There’s a reason he was player of the year in a really good league last year.”
Just like Houston, it might be worth waiting a month or so before we fully judge Alabama.
Brian Dutcher is a gem
After San Diego State opened the tourney with a 71-53 win over Creighton, the Aztecs’ 65-year-old coach opened his press conference with a huge grin, saying that he loves his team but he has no idea what he’s going to get from them night-in and night-out. He also noted that he was fortunate that Creighton was without sharpshooter Steven Ashworth.
Then Dutcher delivered a line of irony: “I sit and watch all these other teams with eight new pieces. I’m like, damn, that coach is doing a good job and I don’t know if I’m doing a good job yet or not. I’m trying and we’re trying. We’re trying to figure it out on the fly. And the best lessons to learn are lessons you learn when you win.”
The irony is that Dutcher is an outstanding coach. The Aztecs nearly made our preseason Top 25, despite the fact they were replacing five starters and beginning the year without leading returning scorer Reese Waters, who is still out. The reason for the optimism? Dutcher. His teams always guard, with five straight finishes in the top 21 in adjusted defense, including four in the top 11. This year’s group sits 12th in adjusted defense even though Dutcher is starting two sophomores — one of which, Davis, barely played last year — and two transfers.
The offense is coming along and should only get better as the young guys get more confidence, Waters returns and Florida Atlantic transfer Nick Boyd adapts to playing point guard. Boyd played mostly off the ball at FAU and was more of a spot-up shooter, and he now has the highest usage rate on the team.
After going 2-1 in Vegas, the Aztecs came away feeling better than anyone outside of Oregon. It was a reminder that Dutcher is one of the best coaches in the sport, and seeing how he acts up close, it’s no wonder his guys play so hard for him.
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Rutgers’ lottery picks delivered
Harper opened the Players Era Festival with 36 points against Notre Dame, then dropped 37 in the loss to Alabama and put on a clinic in attacking ball screen coverages.
First, Alabama played a drop coverage, and it proved impossible for Alabama’s backpedaling bigs to contain the freshman.
Oats was hesitant to blitz Harper because he’d watched him pick that coverage apart in previous games, making all the right passes when the defense sent two to the ball. But with Harper just abusing Alabama’s bigs in drop coverage in the second half, Oats tried the blitz, and this happened:
Harper is one of the best guards I’ve seen in college basketball once he gets his feet in the paint. He maneuvers around defenders like an experienced running back waiting for his line to open a hole. He always seems to figure out a way to get an angle to the rim, and he’s so big (6-6) and strong that he can finish through bodies. He also is smart about drawing contact, getting to the free throw line 16 times against Alabama. He’s drawing 6.9 fouls per 40 minutes.
My initial takeaway watching Ace Bailey was that the talent is obvious but he takes too many difficult shots — 35 mid-range jumpers in five games, for example — and sometimes it seems like he’s just waiting for the next time it’s his turn to shoot the ball. But Bailey played a more complete game against Notre Dame (24 points on 10-of-20 shooting, 10 rebounds, two steals) and while you’d like to see him be more efficient, it’s clear why he’s in the conversation to be a top pick in the NBA Draft. At 6-10, he has a lightning-quick release on his jumper, he’s a legit shooter and he moves so effortlessly it looks like he’s floating.
Harper is more of a refined prospect, but Bailey is oozing with potential.
The two of them give the Scarlet Knights a chance against anyone, but they’ve also proven they can play down to their competition, which is how they went blow for blow with a title contender just three days after losing at Kennesaw State.
Whether Rutgers is an tourney team or not will depend a lot on its role players, who actually played well in a close loss to Texas A&M on Saturday.
Defenses will smarten up on Harper, building a wall and making anyone else beat them. Rutgers is just a 31.7 percent 3-point shooting team, and the strategy should be to force anything but a Harper shot in the paint. But when the others pose threats and Harper and Bailey can play a two-man game on one side of the floor, good luck stopping this:
What happened to Creighton star Ryan Kalkbrenner?
Through four games, Kalkbrenner was averaging 25.8 points and shooting 89.1 percent from the field. Then Creighton played Nebraska. The Huskers upset the Bluejays with a strategy reminiscent of Fairleigh Dickinson’s 16-over-1 upset of Purdue in the 2023 NCAA Tournament, bracketing Kalkbrenner with his man basically sitting in his lap and a second defender shadowing behind. Kalkbrenner did not attempt a shot inside the arc in the 74-63 loss. San Diego State copied the strategy, and while Kalkbrenner got off 12 shots, he made only five. He then scored nine points on 4-of-5 shooting in a loss against Texas A&M.
The solution? Creighton needs to make 3s. The Jays were a combined 18 of 73 from 3 in the losses to Nebraska and San Diego State. Kalkbrenner missed the final game in Vegas — a 80-76 win over Notre Dame — and the difference for Creighton’s offense was the outside shooting: They made 11 of 24 3s. Head coach Greg McDermott does not have the talent he’s used to having, and for this to be a NCAA Tournament team, the target percentage for 3-point shooting is probably somewhere in the high 30s. Right now Creighton is at 31.4 percent. That’s not enough to dissuade the Huskers’ strategy.
Can Texas A&M avoid a December slump?
The Buzz Williams era at Texas A&M has been defined by mostly slow starts — or middles — and strong finishes. Last season the Aggies lost four of six right after Thanksgiving and were on the verge of missing the NCAA Tournament after a five-game losing streak in SEC play. Three years ago, the Aggies lost nine of 10 midway through SEC play and ended up on the wrong side of the bubble. This year’s team, with most of its rotation back, was expected to start strong. The Aggies have bounced back after a season-opening loss at UCF and left Vegas in a decent spot — wins over Creighton and Rutgers and a loss to Oregon that looks better now — but the schedule is set up for a potential slump. The next three include a home game against Wake Forest on Tuesday, a neutral-floor game against Texas Tech on Sunday and a semi-neutral-site game against Purdue the next weekend in Indianapolis.
“I’ve probably done a bad job in November and December in regards to maybe being prepared to play at the highest level, like tonight (against Creighton), I don’t know how many specials we had to run just to make it a game,” Williams told The Athletic. “In November, we will have played four Quad 1s. We’re about to play six Quad 1s in a row. We’ve never done that. There’s not many teams that have done that, so I think it forces you to have to hurry up. I’m trying to do better. I think the quality of the schedule forces you to do that.”
Notre Dame: Last, but with an asterisk
Notre Dame was the only winless team in Vegas, but star guard Markus Burton left the opener against Rutgers three minutes in with a knee injury. Burton is Notre Dame’s most important player, and that’s a game the Irish probably win with him — they lost 85-84.
This team is probably a year away from competing for a NCAA Tournament bid, but watch out once coach Micah Shrewsberry gets it going. He is one of the best in college basketball at putting his pieces in the right spots offensively. Notre Dame has the seventh-ranked recruiting class for 2025, according to 247Sports, with four players already signed, headlined by five-star Jalen Haralson. With four starters back next season, there’s reason for optimism. In the meantime, fingers crossed Burton is back soon. My biggest disappointment from the trip was not getting to watch him in-person.
(Photo: Candice Ward / Getty Images)
