Oregon Basketball: 5 Things the Ducks Must Do to Make the NCAA Tournament

With Pac-12 conference games upon us in two weeks, teams need to begin shoring up their game and impressing poll voters if they haven't already. It appears so far that the conference is wide open. Zero teams are currently ranked in the top 25 of either of the two major polls, (AP and USA Today), and overall, it looks like it will be another down year for the Pac-12.

That's not necessarily a bad thing for borderline teams like Oregon, who have the ability to make a run in the conference tournament and slip into the big dance in March if they make a few adjustments.

With the disappointing and unbelievably quick departure of Jabari Brown, who was supposed to be a freshman sensation (12 points, 3-of-11 FG, 1-of-7 threes, 5-of-12 free throws, 11 turnovers in two games), veteran Ducks will have to rise up and account for what Brown could have eventually contributed. Although his stats were nothing short of awful through two games, Brown has a lot of potential, and Oregon would have loved to have him down the road.

Seniors Jeremy Jacob and Garrett Sim and junior E.J. Singler are the only three players remaining from the Ernie Kent era and have formed some good chemistry over the years. Those three will need to lead Oregon this year both on the court and in the locker room if the Ducks have any chance of making the NCAA Tournament.

Sim is doing his part, having the best season of his career. Tied for the team lead in scoring with Singler (13.0 ppg), Sim has emerged as a scorer this season instead of a role player. He leads the team in minutes played, three-point percentage, free throw percentage and has only committed seven fouls in eight games. The Portland native is also second in field goal percentage, assists and steals.

Sim is having a breakout season, and with Singler's consistency and sound fundamentals, hopefully the supporting cast will all rise to Sim's level as the season continues.

Oregon shoots a lot of threes, 156 to be exact, which is almost 20 per game. At an efficiency of 35.9 percent, those numbers are actually good for fifth in the conference. But on a team loaded with 10 players 6'8'' or shorter, the Ducks often live and die by the outside shot.

Their only legitimate posts are Wake Forest junior transfer Tony Woods at 6'11'' and Jeremy Jacob at 6'8''. If the outside shooters can make a few more threes each game, that'll draw defenses away from Woods and Jacob and allow the ball to worked into the middle easier and more often.

As mentioned earlier, no teams from the Pac-12 are ranked in the top 25, nor have any of them beaten a top-25 ranked opponent. Oregon's best win at this point is a seven-point victory over 6-3 Nebraska on the road. The only other possible tourney teams the Ducks have played are then-No. 7 Vanderbilt and BYU, both losses.

Their game against Virginia (8-1) on December 18th is extremely important. If Oregon loses that one, they'd better impress pollsters in conference play, and hopefully, some Pac-12 teams can slip into the top 25 so the Ducks can potentially beat them and boost their resumé. Otherwise they may have to return to the CBI, which they won over Creighton last year. 

Side note: VCU won the CBI in 2010 and made a Final Four run the following season. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Oregon has been pretty good on offense this season, ranking fourth in the Pac-12 in scoring with 73.5 points per game. They really really need to improve on defense if they're going to make a run in the conference tourney, let alone get an NCAA tournament bid.

The Ducks are 10th in the Pac-12 in points allowed (69.8 points per game), ahead of only Utah (1-8, really bad) and Washington, who scores 80 points a game. As long as Tony Woods continues his shot blocking prowess down low, and sophomore Johnathan Loyd keeps displaying his quickness and grabbing steals, the point guard and center positions will have a tough time scoring.

The rest of the team has to improve if Oregon is to stop the other Pac-12 teams once conference play starts. E.J. Singler and Garrett Sim have also been solid defensively, but opponents are still slicing through the Ducks D a little too easily.

One of the largest contributors to Oregon's success under Ernie Kent in the early 2000's was the team's experience together and chemistry. At the end of last season, the Ducks finally came together as a team and looked like they had been playing together for years in their CBI title run.

Since Kent's firing after the 2009-10 season, numerous players have either transferred or quit. Even after last season, Oregon's most successful one since 2007-08, the team lost six players via transfer or quit, as well as two to graduation.

Garrett Sim, Jeremy Jacob and E.J. Singler have been there since Kent was at the helm and will need to lift their team and bring them together. The influence of returning sophomores Johnathan Loyd and Nicholas Lucenti, as well as senior Tyrone Nared, also is essential to the teams' success under second-year coach Dana Altman.

It's tough to be successful with an array of new players coming in and out every year, and if Oregon wants to once again be the team they once were with players like Maarty Leunen, Aaron Brooks and the Lukes, there needs to be some serious staying power developed between players and coaches alike.

I like what Altman has done so far in his short time at Oregon, and with a solid group of players that have chemistry and a knowledge of how one another play, the team could eventually return to a perennial Pac-12 favorite.