Indiana concludes a two-game West Coast road trip against Oregon on Tuesday night. The Ducks are 21-8 overall and 10-8 in Big Ten games.
Tuesday’s game will tip at 9 p.m. ET on FS1:
After a five-game losing streak from Jan. 25 through Feb. 8, Oregon has reversed the course of its season. The Ducks have won five straight, including an 82-61 win over USC over the weekend in Eugene.
Indiana is also playing its best stretch of basketball this season entering Tuesday’s tilt at Knight Arena. The Hoosiers have won three straight, four of five and are on the right side of the NCAA tournament bubble in most projections.
MEET THE DUCKS
Oregon has a balanced offensive group, with four players averaging double figures, but the two-man combo of Jackson Shelstad and Nate Bittle is at the top of the scouting report for opposing defenses.
Shelstad, a 6-foot sophomore, leads the Ducks in scoring at 13.4 points per game. More of a score-first than pass-first guard, Shelstad is the second-best 3-point shooter in conference play at 47.4 percent. An excellent finisher for his size (50 percent on 2s in league play), Shelstad is also an excellent free throw-shooter. For the season, he’s 86.6 percent from the stripe and is 88.5 percent in Big Ten games.
Bittle struggled with injury issues last season, but those issues are behind him and he’s thriving in his fourth season as a Duck. A 7-footer with a shooting touch, the former McDonald’s All-American can step out and make 3s and also finish in the post. Bittle is shooting 38.7 percent on 3s in conference games and 55.8 percent on 2s. He averages 13.3 points, second on the team, and leads the Ducks in rebounding at 7.1 per game. He’s also an elite shot-blocker. Bittle has a team-high 63 blocks and owns the second-highest block percentage in the league.
The two other Ducks averaging in double figures are senior guard Keeshawn Barthelemy and senior wing TJ Bamba.
Barthelemy, a fifth-year player from Montreal, is a career 37.1 percent 3-point shooter who has made 42.7 percent of his triples this season in Big Ten games. His 10.2 points per game rank third on the team.
Bamba played three seasons at Washington State, transferred to Villanova for one season, and is now back on the West Coast for his final season with Oregon. An excellent perimeter defender who leads the Ducks with 54 steals, the 6-foot-5 Bamba has the highest steal percentage in the Big Ten. However, he’s struggled with his perimeter shot this season. A career 35.8 percent 3-point shooter, Bamba is just 21-for-82 on triples (25.6 percent) this season.
Stanford transfer Brandon Angel starts at the four and is an excellent finisher who can also make the occasional 3-pointer. The 6-foot-9 fifth-year senior shoots 62.7 percent on 2s and 35.6 percent on 3s, averaging 8.8 points.
Dana Altman has a solid bench rotation with four reserves – Kwame Evans, Jadrian Tracey, Supreme Cook and Ra’Heim Moss – regularly contributing.
Evans was a five-star recruit out of Montverde Academy who has shown flashes of potential but has yet to produce consistently. The 6-foot-9 forward is the team’s second-best rebounder despite playing just 15.4 minutes per game. Evans averages six points and 3.9 rebounds.
Tracey and Moss play backup minutes in the backcourt and wing while Cook backs up Bittle. The 6-foot-5 Moss is shooting a dreadful 30.8 percent from the field, while Tracey, also 6-foot-5, has started 16 games and has been a more efficient scorer than Bamba. Tracey is shooting 63.6 percent on 2s.
A 6-foot-9 senior, Cook transferred from Georgetown after spending three seasons at Fairfield. He averages 5.3 points in 12 minutes.
TEMPO-FREE PREVIEW
(All stats are for conference games only and rankings in parenthesis are through Saturday’s games.)
Offensively, Oregon has been a solid 3-point shooting team in Big Ten games. The Ducks make 35.6 percent of their triples in league play and score 33.4 percent of their points on 3s, the third-highest percentage of points from 3s in the Big Ten.
Defensively, Oregon has done a solid job keeping its opponents off of the offensive glass and the free-throw line. Oregon opponents are grabbing just 28.7 percent of their misses in Big Ten games and have a free throw rate (FTA/FGA) of 29.1 percent.
Oregon likes to dictate the pace of the game with full-court pressure. While the Ducks don’t pressure to create turnovers, the best recipe for Indiana will be beating the pressure to score or getting stops so Oregon can’t set up its full-court defense.
WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO
The KenPom projection is Oregon by six, with a 31 percent chance of a Hoosier victory. Bart Torvik’s ratings also favor Oregon by six, with a 30 percent chance of an IU upset.
Oregon is 11-4 at home this season but has won three in a row at Knight Arena. This is Indiana’s last Quad 1 opportunity of the regular season and a win could make the Hoosiers a lock for the NCAA tournament.
Defensively, Indiana will need to slow down Shelstad, which could require a strong defensive game from Myles Rice. Rice was a defensive pest and key to IU’s recent home win against Purdue. Malik Reneau and Oumar Ballo need to be aggressive but also savvy about going at Nate Bittle, one of the best shot-blockers in the country.
(Photo credit: University of Oregon Athletics)
Category: Commentary
Filed to: Oregon Ducks
