The Oregon men’s basketball team beat Utah Valley 69-54 to improve to 3-0 on the season, and yet the first word uttered by head coach Dana Altman following the win was “disappointed.”
The Ducks did a lot of things well Tuesday night. They held the Wolverines to 37.9 percent from the field, they won the rebounding battle, outblocked and outstole their opponent and had a positive turnover margin. But the consensus feeling within the team is that there’s still a long way to go.
“We need to get better,” said Jason Calliste to begin the post-game press conference. “We didn’t really play that well. Too many guys are worried about the wrong things. I mean, we outscored them but we need to lock up. We need to play defense. We just need to get better.”
For the second straight game, Oregon and their opponent were neck-and-neck going into halftime. The Ducks held a two-point lead over Western Carolina last Wednesday and ultimately cruised in the second half en route to a 107-83 victory. With a four-point halftime lead Tuesday night against Utah Valley, there are clearly some kinks to be worked out.
“Offensively I didn’t like our ball movement,” Altman said after Tuesday’s win. “Defensively at times we played really well … there were some bright spots but we’re not taking care of the fundamentals and what we want to do. We’re not running the floor consistently, we don’t have five guys pushing it out, our ball movement in the first half in particular and even in the second was not nearly good enough … we did not attack or get the ball moving the way we need to.”
It’s still very early in the season, and everyone has a bad game now and then, but something about this team isn’t the same as last year’s Sweet 16 and Pac-12 Tournament-champion squad.
Maybe it’s a lack of chemistry. Only seven players carried over from last season and Altman added just as many transfers plus two freshmen. Adjusting to new players should be adapted to like clockwork, but it can be tough to gel that many new people together through a handful of games.
Maybe it’s work ethic. After experiencing more success than the program had in seven years, maybe the desire to get better has eluded some players and it’ll take a loss to get them hungry again.
Maybe it’s the opposition. The team that beat Georgetown and the team that beat Utah Valley looked completely different. The team that won in front of soldiers in South Korea looked determined to impress and make a statement, while the team that played in front of fewer than 6,000 locals often looked disinterested and sloppy.
A telling point in the game was when Joseph Young recorded a steal that led to a fast break dunk. Altman was screaming on the sidelines for players to follow him, something that didn’t happen much last season.
“Our main focal point should be defense,” Calliste said. “We’re going to stop guys and that’s how we’re going to get baskets, that’s how guys are going to score, that’s when we can start running, that’s when we can play our game. Just because we’re up doesn’t mean the game’s over. We have to sit down and just be solid the rest of the game. Play for 40 minutes. Not 35, not 32. We play 40.”
Follow Madison Guernsey on Twitter @guernseymd