OREGON’S GRIND TO MARCH
MONDAY, MARCH 17, 2025
Late-season wins are starting to fuel the Ducks Story on Page 8
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ON THE COVER:
Oregon Head Coach Dana Altman puts his hand over his heart while the national anthem plays before the game. The University of Oregon Ducks Men’s Basketball team was defeated by the University of Colorado Buffaloes 79-75 in a home game at Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene on March 7, 2024.
(Eric Becker/Emerald)
Women’s basketball’s and biggest needs departures
newcomers,
What are the Ducks’ biggest needs going forward?
By Joe Krasnowski Sports Reporter
It’s cruel, but it’s true: sports fans always gravitate toward the future and yearn for what could come next.
Such could be said about the Oregon women’s basketball team; a revitalized program that will likely clinch its first NCAA Tournament berth in three seasons.
The Ducks will likely be among the 68 teams selected to go to March Madness. They might even have a good chance to win a game or two depending on their bracket and opponents. But, with the end of the season comes the search for what could come next.
Memorial High School in 2023. A 5-foot-8 guard, Williams projects as a high-level scorer and a potential top-scoring option later in her career as a Duck.
Sara Barhoum
A commit for nearly a full calendar year, Barhoum is a part of a loaded Clackamas High School roster that includes the No. 2 recruit in the nation, Jazzy Davidson. Barhoum is an unranked prospect by ESPN and projects as a depth scorer similar to Katie Fiso and Ari Long this past season.
Key Departures:
Peyton Scott, Phillipina Kyei
gram,” Graves said of Kyei. “She’s been here for the highs and the lows. She’s been a steady force within the program. When we were recruiting last spring, she met with every recruit. She was the one that helped us build this thing. She’s invested into the University of Oregon.”
Biggest Needs: Center
Kyei’s departure quite literally leaves a giant hole in the Ducks’ future plans. The 6-foot-8 center could be depended upon for 20+ minutes most nights and an easy 10 rebounds. Graves and company will likely need to dip into the transfer portal to replace her role in the frontcourt, with Sarah Rambus and Amina Muhammad Ore
pected when she transferred to Eugene, but Deja Kelly’s impact on the Ducks can’t go unnoticed. Even when baskets weren’t falling for the guard, she still had a massive impact on the Oregon offense as a whole. Elisa Mevius and Sofia Bell have both flashed as solid primary guards in the past, but the Ducks will likely have to dip into
Second wind
Diving into the unit that has secured Oregon men’s basketball’s rise
By Owen Murray Sports Reporter
When the season kicked off for Oregon men’s basketball, the question was about the stars.
Would it be Jackson Shelstad who shone even brighter in his second year? Could Nate Bittle fill N’Faly Dante’s shoes? Discussions over the top of the box score dominated keyboards and airwaves.
Nobody was talking about the unit that has kept the Ducks in bounceback games, led comebacks and succeeded even in losses.
Nobody was talking about the bench.
Oregon’s relief unit has been the one to push it through a season that had obvious goals, but less-obvious ways to get there. The Ducks went into the season with question marks in the starting lineup, but relative security down the line: two of the five starters were transfers, but just one of the Ducks’ bench players would play his first year in the program. It was a secure backup, or a failsafe option when the first-
choice players didn’t click on their day.
This year, it was all about the bench.
Five Oregon players play, on average, more than half of the game. That’s head coach Dana Altman’s starting lineup — Jackson Shelstad, TJ Bamba, Nate Bittle, Brandon Angel and Keeshawn Barthelemy (rotated from Jadrian Tracey earlier in the season). Those players are tasked with building the lead, and with defending it.
When Altman looks down the bench, though, he’s got more options. Tracey, a fourth-year wing with 42 career starts and 86 total games, won’t be flustered when he comes off the bench. Supreme Cook, the 6-foot-9 center, provides no physical drop-off from Angel and Bittle. Second-year forward Kwame Evans Jr. struggled early in the season, but is averaging 5.9 points per game and has emerged as a dominant defender.
“It helps,” Altman said after the bench put up 19 points against USC on March 1. “Mookie (Cook) made a big difference at Wisconsin, gave us three or four really good minutes. Ra’Heim (Moss)’s given us some good defensive minutes. The conference tournament…I’d like to think our depth could help us and win the first one to get to the second one.”
I’d like to think our depth could help us and win the first one to get to the second one. “ “
The Ducks, though, have struggled to hold leads all year, and that came to bear when they headed to East Lansing, Michigan, on Feb. 8.
and the bench tallied 13 points. After the break, though, the Ducks couldn’t swim. Oregon put up just 24 points in the second half and lost a game where it had one of the nation’s top teams on the ropes. The bench outscored the Spartans, 24-14, and yet the Ducks lost.
The bench thrived again against Washington at Matthew Knight Arena on Jan. 21 — less than a week after the Ducks were held to just 58 points at home in a loss to No. 20 Purdue.
Starters Shelstad and Bittle were held to two and three first-half points, respectively. It didn’t matter. Cook (13 points) and Barthelemy (11) took over, scoring freely to will the Ducks to a win in a crucial spot. Oregon led the game in bench points 26-9, including a 15-4 mark in the second half.
The postgame press conference didn’t hound Oregon’s stars; it praised two potential starters in other places for their roles in a rivalry victory.
“Depth always helps,” Altman said after a win over USC. “You’ve got options, and you’ve definitely got to have the depth.”
As the Ducks move into a period where they’ll have to play games like their battles with the Spartans and Huskies more and more often — and with their season on the line — the bench will be in a position to step up once again.
JERISE FREEMAN’S ENERGETIC SIDELINE PRESENCE
The addition of assistant coach Jerise Freeman was just as notable as any player — and she’s helped the Ducks to the verge of an NCAA Tournament berth
By Lily Crane Sports Reporter
The Matthew Knight Arena crowd combined into cheers that were deafening to the ears on the court.
Oregon assistant coach Jerise Freeman was just as fired up as the sea of green and yellow in the stands. She hopped out of her seat on the sideline and clapped her hands, shouting words of encouragement at her players. The Ducks mimicked her energy on the court, flexing and roaring as they forced turnover after turnover.
Even though the game ended as a 6252 loss, defensive stops are what kept the Ducks in the game against undefeated No. 1 UCLA longer than any team up to that point. It was the side of the floor that Freeman specialized in.
About a month earlier, Freeman sat in the practice gym after the team’s workout wearing a patterned green pom beanie with the Duck logo on the center. A smile flashed across her face as she recalled a moment in high school when she started to understand that her energy is what makes her stand out.
“My high school coach came to me and he was like, ‘You don’t have the opportunity to have ups and downs. You’re energy — that’s what you are. That’s what you bring,’” Freeman said. “‘That is your constant. And so if you’re having a bad day, unfortunately, you’re going to have to hide it because we feed off of the low energy just as much as the high.’”
In the past few seasons, the Ducks didn’t have a personality like Freeman whose spirit could inject energy into the program.
“Sometimes I had to fill that role, give the energy,” head coach Kelly Graves said. “I’m 62 years old. My energy is different than (the) young energy that she’s been giving us.”
Graves called Freeman last summer with a vision: Oregon would get back to a place of prominence similar to where it stood five years prior when it reached the Final Four.
“It’s not like he hasn’t been to the Final Four. It’s not like he hasn’t been to Sweet 16,” Freeman said. “It’s like he’s been there and done that.”
The thought of the Ducks reaching the 2025 NCAA Tournament would’ve been laughed off at the end of last season. The program lost 14 straight games and its top two scorers transferred. Coach Graves went to work in the offseason, not just recruiting top talents from the transfer portal, but adding a proven assistant coach to his staff.
Freeman decided to exit her previous coaching role at Utah in the offseason, despite the disparity in success the two pro-
grams achieved in recent years.
Freeman said that when Graves called her about the opportunity in Eugene, she almost didn’t take it — not because of the program’s haunting past, but because she was afraid of how she’d han dle increased responsibility.
“I was nervous. I didn’t want to fail him,” Freeman said. “I knew they were coming off of a tough season and I didn’t want to be the reason why we failed.”
“ I was nervous. I didn’t want to fail him. I knew they were coming off of a tough season and I didn’t want to be the reason why we failed.
- Jerise Freeman UO Assistant Coach
“
Freeman ended up taking the position and the Ducks’ defense thrived as a result.
Oregon is on the bubble of making the 2025 NCAA Tournament despite the tur bulent road it took to get to this point. Loss es to Nebraska and Washington in the final three games of the regular season keep the Ducks’ postseason placement in flux.
Beyond a single season, programs are al ways in search of new stars on the court to pick up lost production as a result of inevita ble roster turnover. Regardless of where the Ducks land in March, keeping Freeman on the staff will only allow Oregon to continue building what she’s started on the defensive side of the floor.
(Jordan Martin/Emerald)
EIGHT-GAME WIN STREAK GIVES OREGON MAJOR BOOST IN MARCH
After a five-game skid almost ruined the season, the Ducks’ five-game win streak has brought the team back on track
By Jack Lazarus Sports Associate Editor
Oregon men’s basketball tends to be a microcosm of the grit and grind endured in a college basketball season. Accompanying that is the increased amount of travel experienced by Big Ten teams due to the conference’s expansion — it’s a borderline impossible mission to stay consistent the whole year.
Last season, Oregon exemplified the tough grind, as the Ducks started conference play on a lackluster run only to flip that on its head by March.
As the season got underway, however, it never appeared this would repeat itself, but, lo and behold,
The Ducks entered their first season of Big Ten
While much of the Power Four can boast solid out-of-conference records before January hits, Oregon’s 8-0 record was astounding. The Ducks actually got conference play started in early December as they took a win down in Los Angeles against the USC Trojans, but fell at the buzzer to UCLA for their first loss of the season.
That being the only loss in the 2024 portion of this
season meant something.
Wins against two real contenders in the nation’s best conference — the SEC — in Texas A&M University and University of Alabama put the Ducks on the country’s radar. Oregon ranked as high as the No. 9 slot on the AP top-25 poll in December, and were in the top 16 as recently as late Jan.
So, what happened?
One can point to certain games like the ones at home against Illinois and Purdue. Each of those contests, in their own ways, humbled Oregon as it looked to start a reign of terror over its new conference. The blue bloods of the Big Ten made sure to quiet that noise.
“I have no problem with our effort and our focus. Against Michigan and Michigan State, we played hard, we just weren’t good enough those two days to beat them,” head coach Dana Altman said.
That Purdue game became the beginning of a stretch where Oregon would lose six of seven, including a five-game skid. In those seven games, the Ducks scored more than 75 twice, with their only victory in the stretch coming 82-71 over Washington.
“Other than that one week, I thought our guys have tried. I haven’t been pleased with their focus at times or their execution offensively. But, for the most part, they’re trying to listen and trying to do what we want them to do,” Altman said.
That one week derailed the season so dramatically that it knocked the Ducks out of the top-25 and created a lot of questions regarding their hopes to return to March Madness.
However, the losing streak fired Oregon up for the final stretch of the season, especially the team’s two-way focal point, Nate Bittle.
Bittle scored in double-digits in two of the five losses — one game tallying 13 points and the other 16. The senior big man flipped that on its head by scoring in single-digits just once in the eight-game win streak.
“It’s March, everybody’s playing for their lives, and we just gotta come ready to play,” senior guard Keeshawn Barthelemy said.
Barthelemy also mentioned that the energy in the locker room is “different” at this point in the season. That energy started to translate on the defensive end in a dramatic way.
The last time the Ducks turned the ball over
“ “ “It’s March, everybody’s playing for their lives, and we just gotta come ready to play.”
- Keeshawn Barthelemy, Senior Guard
least 77 points in each of the games. In the eight games since then, the Ducks allowed that just once, and still won a nail-biter against the Iowa Hawkeyes.
“We’re starting our sixth month (of the season) here and you hope the guys have enough to finish. You can get worn out, you can lose your focus, you can lose your intensity,” Altman said.
The opposite appears to be true; the Ducks’ intensity seemed to ramp up with each of the previous five wins.
“There’s a sense of urgency here, it’s our last month. It’s been a long season,” Altman said.
A similar sense of urgency propelled N’Faly Dante, Jermaine Couisnard and co. to a Pac-12 tournament win and an appearance in the March Madness Round-of-32. With the ability to receive production from players outside the top seven or eight players, which became the case last season.
“Definitely gotta have depth, and guys gotta be ready to go,” Altman said. “That’s why I am so happy
This most recent run of positive basketball has both Altman and the team confident as the Ducks enter the Big Ten Tournament. Oregon is a bat tle-tested team that rides a dangerous hot streak, and Altman believes there’s more to come.
“I think we’re really close to having better offensive possessions and our communi cation can get better defensively. I think we’re really close to having a good ball team,” Altman said.
Peyton Scott’s resurgence
How an experienced guard will fuel Oregon in the postseason She’s just tough. She wants to play. She wants to be out there. “ ”
Graves,
The Oregon women’s basketball team has seen a significant improvement from last year, when it finished the season 11-21 (2-16 Pac-12) and did not win a game beyond mid-January. Now, the Ducks sit at 19-10 (10-8 Big Ten) and are on track to make an appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Arguably the biggest factor in this season’s turnaround has been the presence of graduate
Oregon acquired Scott from the transfer portal ahead of last season after she earned her bachelor’s degree from Miami University of Ohio, but she tore her ACL in the season opener and did not return. This season, Scott averaged 9.8 pointsper-game in the regular season with a shooting percentage of .403 and .333 from beyond the arc with the Ducks finishing
“There’s nothing like playing here at MKA,” Scott said. “I mean, you can feel it, you know, you can feel when we start to go on a run and the crowd gets involved and the bench gets hyped. You know, I’m a pretty passionate player so I’m right there with them. So you definitely feel the energy shift.”
Scott has not had an injury-free season this year either. She suffered an-
other knee injury during Oregon’s New Year’s Eve win over Northwestern University. Fortunately, this injury was much smaller and Scott was able to return to the court less than a month later.
However, a couple weeks after returning, she suffered a leg injury. This was also a minor injury that only caused Scott to miss one game, but head coach Kelly Graves believes she is still playing through some pain.
“That’s Peyton Scott for you,” Graves said. “That’s who she is. She’s just tough. She wants to play. She wants to be out there. We weren’t making that up. She is hurt. It’s one of those situations at the end of the year that you see all the time, ‘Oh, she played on a torn MCL’ or whatever the case may be, on a broken ankle or whatever.’”
In addition to her coaches, Scott has been an inspiration to her teammates as well as she battles her injuries and still spends quality time on the court.
“Obviously, Scotty’s just an inspiration,” Ari Long said. “It’s just a testament to her toughness and her want to be on the floor for us, for her teammates. Obviously, she’s one of the best leaders I’ve seen in the game and I’m just grateful to play under her.”
Scott has not shown any lacking in her performance these past couple months since these injuries occurred and she’s committed to keeping her foot on the gas pedal for her team
“It’s a huge blessing,” Scott said. “When you go through those injuries and endure some hardship, you just continue to grow and understand that it can be taken away from you any day, so just being grateful, being present. I’m truly grateful to be on this team with these girls, you know, I love them and know that the end is coming, it is near, but you know, just continuing to play for them.”
The Ducks are fully confident that under Peyton Scott’s leadership, they will do well in March Madness.
(Darby Winter/Emerald)
Peyton Scott (10) brings the ball up. The Oregon Ducks Women’s basketball team took on the Purdue University Boilermakers on Jan. 15, 2025 in Matthew Knight Arena.
Peyton Scott (10) goes up for a tough lay-in. Oregon Women’s Basketball took on Rutgers University in Eugene on Feb. 23, 2025.
(Darby Winter/ Emerald)
-Kelly
Head Coach
BIG TEN SUPERLATIVES
Opinion: Which Big Ten teams are taking home hypothetical end-of-season honors for men’s basketball?
By Brady Ruth Sports Editor
For the first time ever, 18 teams vied for supremacy in the Big Ten and surprisingly, they all had a mixed bag of results. With the regular season behind us, let’s treat this like it’s high school and dish out some end-of-year superlatives!
MOST LIKELY TO WIN IT ALL
— Michigan State
The Spartans were the Big Ten’s top team and highlighted their season by beating their rival on the road. Michigan State is a program that’s always dangerous in March and may be the Big Ten’s best chance at a national championship in 2025.
MOST LIKELY TO TAKE A LONG LOOK IN THE MIRROR
— Rutgers
How does a team with two consensus first-round NBA Draft picks spend most of the season fighting for a spot in a 14-team conference tournament? That’s embarrassing no matter how you put it and the Scarlet Knights need to do some serious self-reflection.
MOST LIKELY TO DREAM OF PAST PASTURES
Washington and USC
A two-for-one? You betcha! Two of Oregon’s biggest rivals — that the Ducks were so kind to bring with them to the Big Ten — probably wish they would have stayed in the Pac-12. The Trojans and the Huskies were both dump-
ster-fire programs in the Big Ten, winning less than a dozen combined conference games. Oh well, winning isn’t for everyone. These two squads made sure of it!
MOST LIKELY TO GET HEARTBROKEN IN MARCH
— Maryland
The poor Terrapins had to suffer three different buzzer-beater losses in conference play this season, leading me to believe that when the end of the line comes for Maryland, it will be merciless and brutal for fans in College Park, Maryland.
MOST LIKELY TO RECRUIT LIKE CRAZY Purdue
A lot of people thought the Boilermakers would take a massive step back after the departure of Zach Edey, but the falloff wasn’t overly extreme. Purdue stayed toward the top of one of college basketball’s best conferences and will be a major threat in the national tournament. A team that proves it can win even in “down years” will surely attract a good amount of incoming talent.
MOST LIKELY TO PULL A BIG UPSET
—
Oregon
At one point in the season, the Ducks were ranked as a top-10 team. While their fall from grace was rapid, it now allows them to play spoiler from an overlooked spot from this point on. Oregon is red-hot and playing some of its best ball. The Ducks aren’t a team anyone is excited to face right now, and could prove troublesome for a contender’s championship aspirations.
MOST LIKELY TO TURN HEADS IN THE TOURNAMENT
Illinois
—
It seems that every time I check on a meaningful Illini game, they’re blowing out a good opponent scoring an avalanche of buckets. Illinois loves to put up big point totals, and that’s something that could win the orange and blue a lot of hearts in the tournament.
MOST LIKELY TO HAVE THEIR SEASON COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN
— Northwestern, Iowa, Minnesota
What weird fever dreams these teams all had. They weren’t good enough to do anything overly memorable, but they aren’t completely in the basement of the Big Ten. They just kind of sat in a weird purgatory limbo and likely won’t be thought of again after you finish reading this article.
MOST LIKELY TO END UP OVERHYPED IN THE TOURNAMENT UCLA
Los Angeles market? Unimpressive conference record? Big brand? Check, check, check! I see UCLA as a team that ruins a lot of brackets after people listen to the “experts” that like the Bruins for their history or their colors.
