Dana Altman praises physicality of Kel'el Ware

On Saturday, Oregon won 73-68 against Stanford to wrap up the regular season. In that contest, the Ducks used a team effort to take down the Cardinal. One of the biggest contributors for Oregon came off of the bench; true freshman big man Kel’el Ware. After the game, Oregon head coach Dana Altman shared what was the best part of Ware’s game against Stanford.

“I’ve been on him about his physicality. Against Washington State, he wasn’t physical with Gay, and it hurt us” said Altman. “But he was physical tonight. And even the two he missed in the second half, his nose was going to the goal. He was down low; he was physical. So I thought his 10 minutes — whatever he got tonight — were great. I love this physicality, even though he missed shots (in the) second half. Nose to the goal; he was physical (and) he was aggressive. I thought he played really good.”

Ware played just under nine minutes in the game, but it was still highly effective against Stanford. The freshman center from North Little Rock, AR, finished the game with seven points on 3-5 shooting from the field and connecting on his lone three-point attempt on the night.

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.

“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.