When the Associated Press released its men's college basketball preseason Top 25 rankings, the Oregon Ducks were nowhere to be found.
Returners From Last Season
To many, this was a surprise as the Ducks return perhaps their most impactful players that they had a season ago when they clinched a #5 seed in this past March's NCAA Tournament. Among the returners are junior guard Jackson Shelstad, junior forward Kwame Evans Jr. and fifth-year senior center Nate Bittle. Starting off, Jackson Shelstad is what Oregon fans hope to be a carbon copy of Ducks legend Payton Pritchard, and he has already shown promising signs of doing so.
Shelstad secured a bid to the PAC-12 All-Freshman team in the 2023-24 season, followed by a nod to the Third-team All-Big Ten team in his sophomore campaign. Last season he averaged 13.7 points on 45.1% from the field, which included 37.9% from deep. Now this year, Jackson was one of thirteen Big Ten players named as a Men's Naismith Trophy Preseason Watch List Winner. Moving on to Kwame Evans Jr., he became a key piece for Dana Altman's Ducks in year two. In 35 games Kwame posted 6.1 points a match to go with 4.6 rebounds.
In 2023, he was the 14th overall high school recruit ranked five-stars per ESPN. Lastly we have the 7-foot 220 pound tank in Nate Bittle. Bittle was granted a fifth year of eligibility earlier this year after a breakout senior season where he recorded 14.2 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.1 blocks on average. Just like his teammate Jackson Shelstad, Nate was named to the Third-team All-Big Ten team last season as well as being named as a Men's Naismith Trophy Preseason Watch List Winner. Additionally, he was awarded a spot on the most recent Big Ten All-Defensive Team.
New Players
On top of the three-headed beast of returners, Dana Altman brought in yet another intimidating class of newcomers. Altman brought aboard the 22-year old sensation out of China, Wei Lin. Last year in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), Lin averaged 21 points and five assists through 34 games.
Lin has received a ridiculous amount of hype as he is thought to have what it takes to be the next CBA product to impact at the next level. Interestingly enough, Lin had other looks such as an offer to play on the Dallas Mavericks G-League squad, as well as drawing curiosity from the National Basketball League (Australia). Following Lin, the Ducks bagged senior transfer Takai Simpkins. Simpkins comes from Elon, where he brought home an All-CAA Second Team honor after leading the team with 16.4 points per game.
Simpkins is a true, high-volume scorer who has the ability to score from all three levels. With Shelstad missing the beginning of the season due to a broken hand, Lin and Simpkins should be expected to step up and take control of the Ducks backcourt. The last addition to make note of is Sean Stewart, who spent one year at each Duke and Ohio State. It is also worth considering that Stewart was a five-star recruit by ESPN in the 2023 class. Stewart spent his sophomore season in a room of crowded scorers on the Buckeyes.
He started in 30 games where he notched 5.7 points and 5.8 rebounds on average. Sean now enters his junior year, where he is poised for a breakthrough, as he should have Altman's trust to have a bigger role than he has had in the past.
Head Coach Dana Altman
The last reason to believe in the Oregon hype is because of Dana Altman. Altman has led the flock from Eugene since the 2010-11 season and is 371-162 (.696) with the Ducks as he is the school's winningest head coach. Altman is also 40th all time with 781 wins as a men's college basketball head coach. As many Oregon fans know, Dana Altman always has his team on point when it matters. He has led several teams to the big dance in miraculous conference tournament runs after underperforming in the regular season.
Fortunately in this case, he hopefully will not have to worry about making a dramatic run this year as his roster is more than capable of clinching another top seed in this season's tournament. To add on to this, in the nine NCAA Tournaments that Altman has been to with Oregon, he has impressively won in at least the first round in every single one. Altman gives college hoops fans all the reasons to believe why the Ducks will be another threat this season.