Oregon Basketball: Ducks disappoint, but still time for turnaround in 2021-22

This week, we ran a poll to determine the most disappointing team in college basketball through the early portion of the season. There are some good candidates, to be sure. Nevada doesn’t look like a tourney threat, Michigan doesn’t look like a Final Four threat, and Rutgers doesn’t look like much at all.

The overwhelming leader in the poll, however, is the Oregon Ducks. The team entered the season with sights set on a Pac-12 title, but appeared to have webbed feat out the gate. They racked up 50 percent of the votes in the poll and 50 is a significant number for Oregon.

Oregon Basketball had played in six games prior to Monday night’s competition against Montana. In three of those games, the Ducks failed to score more than 50 points. They lost all three, the three blemishes on a 4-3 record.

All three of those losses could be described as abject humiliations. The closest was a 62-50 defeat at the hand of Saint Mary’s. The other two were defeats at the hands of BYU and Houston by a combined 61 points.

Oregon scored at least 73 points in each of its four victories. It’s hard to boil the key for a team down to something as simply scoring more, but that appears to be what Oregon needs right now: an offensive infusion.

A lead dog scorer has yet to emerge for the Ducks. Through seven games, three players are averaging at least 10 points per game, but none are averaging at least 12. Eric Williams Jr. leads the way with 11.7 points per game.

The players expected to contribute the most frankly haven’t been giving enough. Senior Will Richardson is only putting up 10.6 points and 2.1 assists per game (and that average was boosted by an 18-point performance Monday). De’Vion Harmon averaged 12.9 points per game with Oklahoma last year but is putting up just 8.6 per game in his first season with the Ducks.

Then there’s the case of Quincy Guerrier. The Syracuse alum was one of the biggest names in the transfer portal during the offseason. Since arriving in Eugene, however, the forward has been a massive disappointment, averaging just 5.7 points and 4.9 rebounds per game.

All of the basic counting stats look bad for the Ducks. Before Monday, the team ranked 330th in points (65 per game), 327th in rebounds (33 per game), and 331st in assists (11.2 per game). The team cracked the top 300 in points and rebounds after Monday’s rout, but things still look bleak.

Luckily for the Ducks, there’s still time to turn things around. UC Riverside is next up at home, followed by a tilt against an Arizona State team arguably as disappointing as the Ducks.

Some of the shooting numbers are likely to regress closer to the mean at some point too. In his last four games before Monday, Richardson was shooting 20.6 percent and has hit zero three-pointers in that span. Against Montana, Richardson hit four triples.

Another good takeaway from the Montana game is the team’s three-point shooting in general. The team hit over half of their attempts from deep, 9 of 17. Harmon added three triples of his own in the 40-point victory.

Whether or not Oregon’s rout of Montana is a sign of things to come remains unclear. Oregon has had no trouble beating up on competition of a lower caliber and they are undefeated at home.

But there’s still time for Oregon to turn around its sorry start and make its third straight NCAA Tournament.