Oregon's Will Richardson is "banged up" and questionable to play Saturday at Oregon State

The Oregon men’s basketball program could potentially be without its starting point guard during the stretch run of the regular season.

Senior Will Richardson is dealing with a lingering injury, according to head coach Dana Altman. Richardson did not practice on Wednesday or Thursday and his status is uncertain for Oregon’s Saturday showdown at Oregon State.

“Yeah, he’s banged up a little bit,” Altman said on Thursday. “He didn’t practice yesterday. Didn’t practice today. He’ll hopefully be able to go a little bit on Saturday. But he’s banged up a little bit.”

Richardson is Oregon’s third-leading scorer at 13.0 points per game and leads the Ducks with 5.4 assists per game. After carrying the team through a difficult stretch early in the season, Richardson has struggled of late.

During Oregon’s loss to UCLA on Feb. 11, he scored just five points on 2-for-8 shooting. During the Ducks’ upset defeat at Washington four days later, Richardson did not score a point in 43 minutes and finished the evening with just five field goal attempts.

“He’s not playing real well,” Altman said of Richardson. “(Keeshawn Barthelemy) didn’t have a good game at Washington — at Washington State, he played really good. So, we gave Key some of those minutes.”

Altman said sophomore guard Brennan Rigsby would have ideally been able to step in and take some of Richardson’s minutes this week. But Rigsby is dealing with a sprained ankle and could also be sidelined on Saturday.

Over the past two seasons, Richardson has drawn criticism from a sector of Oregon’s fan base. After injuries and poor performances hindered him toward the end of last season, Altman came to Richardson’s defense during his final press conference of the year and said the point guard had spent the past month battling mono.

On Thursday, Altman was asked about the fanbase’s perception of Richardson and if he feels the criticism is unwarranted.

The head coach once again came to his player’s defense.

“If that’s what they’re saying, they’re not here every day,” Altman said. “People can say whatever they want, but they weren’t here at 1:30 today until 4:00. They weren’t here yesterday 1:00 to 4:00. They’re not with us.

“I guess that’s why I don’t care what they say.”

Altman has frequently praised Richardson this season for his willingness to be Oregon’s “Ironman” and take on a high workload game in and game out. On Thursday, he acknowledged that Richardson’s hasn’t been up to par recently before once again highlighting Ricahrdson’s impact on the team.

“We put a lot on Will for a long time there. Has he been up and down? Yeah. And he’ll be the first one to be his own critic. He’s disappointed that he hasn’t done well. But he had mono last year and played a few games with it before we figured out what he had. He’s played with a bad hand, a bad finger, and a bad hip, and tries to push through. We had other guys not playing real well, so I just stayed with him.

“If there’s anybody to blame, they can blame me for playing him too much.”