Oregon Basketball: What makes the Ducks a potential top-10 team?

3. Reinforcements have arrived.

It is no secret that Oregon basketball lost a ton of talent this offseason by way of graduation and the NBA Draft. Several main pieces from the 2018-19 roster are no longer on the team and that will be difficult to recover from. These departures include the likes of Bol Bol, Louis King, Kenny Wooten, Paul White, and Ehab Amin (among others). Thankfully, though, Coach Altman has done a superb job over the last few months bringing in fresh talent by way of the transfer market and reclassification candidates to fill those holes. We have already discussed the valuable addition of Anthony Mathis to play alongside Payton Pritchard but that is just one of the important newcomers.

Perhaps most notably, Oregon also landed Chris Duarte as the top-rated JUCO prospect in the country. As an elite perimeter threat, the 6-foot-5 wing should add to Oregon’s already strong floor spacing. He is fresh off averaging 19.0 points (.541/.400/.808) and 7.1 rebounds per game last season for Northwest Florida State College and will see plenty of playing time this season. He could emerge as a double-digit per game scorer. Additionally, Shakur Juiston is a 6-foot-7 graduate transfer that could make an impact in the frontcourt. He averaged 13.9 points and 9.7 rebounds per game across two full seasons with UNLV.

Furthermore, the Ducks recently snagged commitments from two highly-rated prospects in N’Faly Dante and Addison Patterson. These two were both originally members of the 2020 class but reclassified at the same time as their commitment so that they are ready to play right away this season. They both should find plenty of minutes in the rotation as they also join the group of reinforcements that have joined the roster in the past few months. Oregon will look very different during this coming season but they might actually have a coherent rotation.