Dana Altman credits Oregon for resiliency throughout the season

The Oregon Ducks have battled through their schedule during the 2022-2023 season, and they’ve somehow managed to scrap together an 18-13 overall record, despite not having much of their roster for most of the season due to injuries. In his recent press conference, Oregon head coach Dana Altman credited his players for battling through the tough times, despite not having a full roster.

Dana Altman talks about the adversity his team has faced

“Yeah, I mean, it has not been one of those where it’s been smooth with injuries to start the year. We had some guys back. A couple more go down. Our rotation doesn’t feel like….here we are in March and we don’t have a rotation. Which is really unusual, but you know, we’re probably as healthy as we’ve been. Other than Will [Richardson] being banged up a little bit. Jermaine [Cousinard]. I think we’ll get Lok [War] back. Brennan [Rigsby] is obviously out for the year but we’re probably as close to being healthy as we’ve been all year,” Altman said.

“It has not been what we anticipated. We had one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country. Houston, Connecticut, Michigan State. Utah Valley won their conference after getting beat by them. So we played a good non-conference schedule. But he had six, seven, eight guys at most throughout those games. Scholarship athletes. So, we just got off to a bad start, we never got a rotation,” Altman said.

The Oregon head coach explained many of his players dealt with lower body injuries this year and those are extremely difficult to deal with in basketball. “Those lower body injuries are a lot different, than say, a hand. Because with a hand you can run. You can defensive slide. You can keep your conditioning. Lower body injuries in basketball are a lot tougher to come back from…” Altman explained.

Oregon still has plenty of weapons and athleticism, and they boast one of the best big men in college basketball in N’Faly Dante. They’ll be an extremely dangerous team in whatever postseason tournament they end up in, that’s for certain. The Ducks are the No. 4 seed in the upcoming Pac-12 Tournament, where they will have a double-bye, before playing their first game in the quarterfinals on Thursday, March 9th.