Dana Altman 'really concerned' after Oregon's performance vs. Hawaii

Oregon avoided a disastrous start to its season Tuesday night with a 60-59 win over Hawaii in Eugene. The Ducks trailed 59-58 late in the game, but a go-ahead layup from senior guard Takai Simpkins with three seconds remaining propelled them to the win.

Dana Altman‘s team desperately missed junior guard Jackson Shelstad, who is not expected to return from his hand injury until late November’s Players Era Festival. Shelstad averaged 13.7 points and 2.7 assists last season for an Oregon team that made a run to the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament.

Following the win, Altman expressed concern with the Ducks’ play in the win. Luckily for Altman and his team, Oregon has three games (Rice, South Dakota State and Oregon State) to tune things up before it clashes with No. 20 Auburn on Nov. 24 in the first game of the aforementioned Players Era Festival.

“Oh absolutely,” Altman responded when asked if he was concerned with the performance. “Absolutely. When you don’t play well in a number of areas, you’re not shooting free throws well, the ball movement is not good and you’re not playing with confidence.”

“We had some experienced players not playing with confidence. So yeah, we’re really concerned. We were concerned after Stanford and that game didn’t calm us down any. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Oregon is heading into second year of play in Big Ten Conference

This season marks Oregon‘s second as a member of the Big Ten Conference. Last year, the Ducks opened the season 9-0 and downed No. 20 Texas A&M, San Diego State and No. 9 Alabama en route to a Players Era Festival Championship. They peaked at No. 9 in the country heading into 2025, but dropped six of seven games from Jan. 18-Feb. 8 and completely fell out of the polls.

They however bounced back and won their final seven regular season games and earned a No. 5 seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. After downing No. 12 seed Liberty in the First Round, the Ducks fell to former Pac-12 rival No. 4 Arizona in the Second Round.

Three rotational players returned from last season’s team, including their two leading scorers in center Nate Bittle and Shelstad. Junior forward Kwame Evans Jr., who played 18 minutes per game and averaged 7.0 points, returned as well. The program its seeking its first trip to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2021, when the Ducks made a run to the Sweet Sixteen.