Scouting the Oregon Ducks ahead of March Madness

South Carolina men’s basketball now knows who, when and where it will be playing in the NCAA Tournament.

The Gamecocks will be a No. 6 seed and face 11-seeded Oregon on Thursday in Pittsburgh, PA in the first round. Tip-off is at 4 p.m. on TNT.

The Ducks will come into March Madness on a roll, having won the Pac-12 Tournament with a 75-68 victory over Colorado on Saturday.

With the win, Oregon is now 23-11 (12-8 Pac-12) on the year. It was not projected to make the tournament prior to last week. But winning four games in four days to win the conference title made it a bit easier to solidify its chances.

Let’s take a further look at the Ducks.

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How they got here

Going through non-conference play, Oregon only lost three games, albeit to better teams. The one exception was losing to Santa Clara, who is ranked 109th in KenPom. The Broncos finished 20-13 and fourth in the West Coast Conference. So not exactly a game that you wanted to lose.

After that, the Ducks came into conference play on a mission, winning their first five games. The big win in that stretch came at Washington State, who also is in the NCAA Tournament as a seven seed.

But from there, Oregon lost four of its next six games and began to slide. The team entered the conference tournament as losers of three of their last five regular season games. This included a 20-point blowout loss against Arizona on the road.

As the story goes, the Ducks came into the Pac-12 Tournament as a four seed and went on a crazy run. This included two straight wins over UCLA and Arizona to advance to the title game. They’d go on to beat Colorado by seven points to earn an outright bid to March Madness.

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Where they sit in the rankings

While Oregon isn’t an AP top 25 team, it clocks in at No. 55 in KenPom and No. 59 in the NET rankings. For comparison, the Gamecocks are 49th in KenPom and No. 52 in NET. And that’s all despite having a 26-7 record this year.

The Ducks are ranked 50th in adjusted offensive efficiency and 70th in adjusted defensive efficiency. They don’t turn the ball over at a high rate at a 14.8 percent clip. And they’re shooting 51.8 percent as a team.

Three players to watch

When going down the Ducks’ roster, there’s an immediate name that stands out: Jermaine Couisnard. If that sounds familiar, that’s because Couisnard played under Frank Martin at South Carolina from 2019-22. He transferred to Oregon after Martin was fired and has seen his game continue to grow.

The senior guard is averaging 15.3 points per game on 38.8 percent shooting. He will be a guy to take a lot of the shots for the Ducks in this tournament, and deservedly so. He’s had seven games with at least 20 points this year, including a 39-point showing against Arizona back on March 2.

The crazy part is, Couisnard isn’t even Oregon’s leading scorer. That title belongs to 6-foot-11 center N’Faly Dante. He’s been money this season, putting up a career-high 16.2 points per game on 70.2 percent shooting.

Granted, a lot of shots are closer to the basket, but when he’s on, he’s tough to stop. In the Pac-12 title game, he scored 25 points on a perfect 12-for-12 shooting night. The most shots he’s missed in a game all year was six back in the season opener. And even then, he still finished at a 50 percent rate.

Freshman guard Jackson Shelstad looks to be the Ducks’ sharp shooter in the starting rotation, outside of Couisnard, of course. He’s averaging 13.1 points per game on 45.5 percent shooting. And he’s been shooting 34.8 percent from three-point range.

Like Couisnard, this is another player who seems to take a lot of shots any given game. Shelstad can be a little sporadic at times, suffering from rough games here and there. But overall, he’s another solid player. And it would make sense that these three players see the bulk of the team’s shots.

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Most interesting matchup

You don’t even need to watch much tape to know what this game will come down to. Of course, South Carolina has to defend well from the outside, especially in a tournament where guard play is so important. But in the paint, Dante vs. Collin Murray-Boyles could be the matchup of the day.

Murray-Boyles has exploded onto the scene with South Carolina since returning from mono at the end of non-conference play. The freshman forward is averaging 10.6 points and 5.9 rebounds per game.

While he’s undersized compared to Dante, he’s going to be facing him quite a bit. And there’s a good chance Josh Gray comes off the bench a bit in this game and steps in as an enforcer. But Lamont Paris is not going to be limiting Murray-Boyles’ minutes because of a height difference.

Murray-Boyles has shown before he can play with the big boys in the paint and collect rebound after rebound. Dante could prove to be his toughest matchup of the year. But to win this game, he has to be the bigger man and hold his own.

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