Dana Altman says Oregon will 'wait and see' on possible December addition

Oregon coach Dana Altman could look to the transfer portal, not for next season, but to help his team with injuries this year. After guard Keeshawn Barthelemy suffered an injury in Sunday’s loss to Houston, the Ducks now have three injured guards as Jermaine Cousinard and Brennan Rigsby have yet to play a game this season.

After Altman described Oregon as “guard-thin,” one reporter asked him whether he would consider an in-season addition. Although the coach didn’t rule out the possibility, he said it depends on how serious the injuries to his players are.

“I don’t know,” Altman said. “We’ll have to look and see how bad Keeshawn is and what Jermaine and Brennan’s situation is. So we’ll just have to wait and see.”

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In addition to the guards, forwards Ethan Butler and Lok Wur have also yet to play a game for Oregon this season. The banged up Ducks have gotten off to a 2-2 thus far, including a 13-point loss against UC-Irvine.

Oregon began this season ranked No. 21, but the early losses have knocked it out of the polls. If he hopes to live up to those preseason expectations, however, Dana Altman may have to seriously consider adding a player to the Oregon roster.

The Ducks will next take on No. 20 Connecticut in the Phil Knight Invitational on Thanksgiving Day.

Dana Altman opens up on Oregon turnover issues Sunday

Oregon hoops suffered their second loss of the season Sunday night as the Ducks hosted the No. 2 team in the country with Houston winning by 10 in Eugene. It was certainly the type of game Cougar coach Kelvin Sampson loves. Houston grinded out the win by forcing turnovers, hitting tough threes and making all the necessary hustle plays. Meanwhile, Oregon coach Dana Altman was ready to blow a gasket in the postgame over his team’s careless job at taking care of the ball.

For good reason. The Ducks turned the rock over 16 times, with his two senior starters, point guard Will Richardson and wing Quincy Guerrier, accounting for most of the cough-ups.

“It was 11 of the 16 turnovers come from Will or Quincy. On one hand the ball is going to end up getting in their hands a lot. But on the other hand, much of the point of frustration is that these are two of your three guys you’re going to lean on a lot and you’re expecting Will to make really good decisions and set them up…” Altman said, upset with the poor decision-making and execution from his super-senior point guard.

Although, Altman admits Richardson may not have been put in the best position to succeed, being asked to run so much of the offense on his own against a swarming Cougar defense.

“Yeah we we put a lot of pressure on Will tonight. And, you know, we had the turnover at the end of the half, and a couple of them weren’t his fault because guys didn’t run the right situation. But no, we’re dependent on him and he had some bad turnovers.”

On3’s Alex Weber contributed to this report.