EUGENE — A week later than originally scheduled, Oregon is finally opening its season tonight. But really, what’s one more week when the last time the Ducks took the court for a game was 271 days ago.
The longest time in between Oregon games since a 274-day break between the 1979-80 and 1980-81 seasons will end for the reigning Pac-12 regular season champions tonight against Missouri (6 p.m., FS1) in Omaha, Neb.
“Need to play a game,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “Guys want to play a game. Heck, I want to play a game. We need to play somebody else. ... I don’t know what to expect this week. This is so non-typical of any preseason.”
A well chronicled scheduling saga for UO included Eastern Washington pull out of last week’s original season opener due to two of its players testing positive for COVID-19 only to then play at Washington State three days later. Four different multi-team events (MTEs) either fall through for one reason or another and numerous marquee games scraped or pushed back.
It took a call from Altman to his former program, Creighton, to get the gears in motion towards a two-game trip to the heartland. The Ducks will take on Mizzou and then Seton Hall on Friday and Altman said if something should arise, the Blue Jays could be a backup opponent.
Such are the times in 2020.
UO was planning to play Missouri this week regardless so the scouting preparation isn’t last minute and though personnel has changed from a year ago, the Ducks and Pirates played last year at the Battle 4 Atlantis so there’s some familiarity.
Missouri is coming off a 15-16 season but has a lot of experience back from a team that ranked second in the SEC in scoring defense (65.2 points) and 13th nationally in three-point defense (28.8%).
“Coach (Cuonzo) Martin’s teams have always been hard-nosed, tough defensive teams,” Altman said. “They held opponents to 40% from the field last year, 28% from three. We know defensively they’ll be really good and they’ll play really hard and they’re very experienced. They got four starters back and 10 upperclassmen. It’s obviously not the game we wanted to have to open up with, but it is what it is.”
The Ducks will be a significantly different team than a year ago without Payton Pritchard running the point, Anthony Mathis on the wing and Shakur Juiston inside. Will Richardson, Chris Duarte, N’Faly Dante and Chandler Lawson are back and Eugene Omoruyi and Eric Williams Jr. are eligible are sitting out as transfers last year. They’re complemented by graduate transfer Amauri Hardy and freshman Jalen Terry, while Oregon is still awaiting word from the NCAA on the immediate eligibility waivers for transfers Aaron Estrada and LJ Figueroa.
Altman said Estrada and Figueroa will travel with the team and Terry is “better” after suffering a minor injury in practice.
“We’ll have to wait here and see who’s ready to go,” Altman said. “It’s part of it. It’s been a long preseason. We had a couple of weeks where we didn’t have everybody because of the virus. We fought through it all.
“Trying to get to Wednesday.”
After a long time away, Wednesday has arrived.
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A week later than scheduled, Oregon men’s basketball opens 2020-21 season against Missouri - OregonLive
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