Dana Altman discusses having to play while on the NCAA Tournament bubble

The Oregon Ducks are in a fight to keep their NCAA tournament hopes alive. During the more recent bracketology reveal prediction, Oregon was on the ‘First Four Out’ line. This makes for a high-pressure situation for the Ducks as the season winds down. And recently, Oregon head coach Dana Altman discussed what the pressure is like for him to win games while his team is on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

“Oh, I don’t know. Try to worry about what we can control,” said Altman. “But it’s been up and down; you know, you have no idea of how the committee will look at our early season with injuries, how they’ll look at the late season. I don’t know. I have no idea. So, we’ve just got to control what we can control, and that hopefully is playing really well at 8:00 o’clock tomorrow night.”

Oregon has a chance to pick up another key win on Wednesday when they travel north to take on the Washington Huskies. Washington is currently on a four-game losing streak but is not an opponent to be taken lightly. Still, for the Ducks to have a true chance at the NCAA tournament in March, this game and likely every game to follow will be a must-win for Altman and his crew.

Dana Altman details Oregon’s issues shutting down top Pac-12 players

Considering the talent across college basketball, it’s really hard to stop an opposing best team’s best player night in and night out. Still, considering what some of the Pac-12’s best have done to Oregon as of late, it has Dana Altman worried.

Altman spoke on that fact after Jaime Jaquez put up 25 points and 12 rebounds on the Ducks in UCLA’s win in Eugene this weekend. He said it’s very obvious that slowing down top competition is a problem at the moment for his team.

“It is a concern. It is a concern,” said Altman. “Again, I’m not the smartest guy but, if you see the numbers those two guys put up in those two games? We had a hard time guarding them.”

The question was specifically focused on Jaquez as well as Azuolas Tubelis at Arizona who scored 40 points inside Matthew Knight Arena. However, this has been a trend for the Ducks all year in league play.

Boogie Ellis at USC as well as Mouhamed Gueye at Washington State each put up 19 on Oregon. From there, though, Oregon State’s Dexter Akanno scored 20, Arizona State’s Desmond Cambridge Jr. hung 21, and Colorado’s Tristan Da Silva dropped 30 in the first game and then 23 in the second game.

Altman’s defense has been okay throughout the Duck’s season where they now sit at 15-11. Even so, they’ll need to find better success getting stops against the league’s best as they wrap up the regular season and try to survive in the conference tournament.