Dana Altman provides injury updates on N'Faly Dante, Nate Bittle ahead of Oregon's showdown with Cal

Oregon’s all-conference center is nearing a healthy return to the court.

N’Faly Dante, who led the Ducks in both scoring and rebounding last season, returned to practice on Tuesday after missing the previous two months due to a knee injury. Dante participated in live, five-on-five work and continues to ramp up as he continues to recover from the surgery he underwent in late November.

“It was a trial run just to give him a little live action,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “We played two four-minute (periods) and three minutes, so we played 11 minutes. He played about seven of it. We’ll just see how he feels tomorrow.”

Altman said he and UO’s medical staff still haven’t determined if Dante will play on Saturday when the Ducks host the Cal Golden Bears at Matthew Knight Arena.

“The big key is how he does tomorrow,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “He worked a little bit yesterday; he worked a lot more today. Tomorrow is our day. We’ll just have to see how he feels. We wanted to give it a trial run. Tomorrow and Thursday will be big days to see how it responds.”

A 6-foot-11 senior was named to the preseason Wooden Award watch list this fall, Dante averaged 13.4 points and 8.4 rebounds last season. In Oregon’s season-opening win over Georgia on Nov. 6, he racked up 16 points and a career-high 21 rebounds.

But during that game, he re-aggravated an injury that had hindered him during the preseason.

On Nov. 24, UO announced that Dante had undergone a successful knee injury and would be reevaluated in four weeks.

“He’s kept himself in good shape,” Altman said of Dante. “We have underwater treadmills. We have things where we can pressure off — we’re fortunate for those facilities. So, he’s not in great shape by any means. But he’s not totally out of shape. He’s watched what he ate a little bit and did some things. The seven minutes he played today were really good.”

Junior center Nate Bittle was expected to be a big contributor on both ends of the floor this year, too, but has also missed most of the season due to injury. Bittle fell and suffered a broken wrist during the Ducks’ Nov. 18 win over Tennessee State.

On the same day that UO announced Dante’s surgery, it announced that Bittle underwent successful wrist surgery and would be re-evaluated in eight weeks.

“We’re still testing — he hasn’t been cleared yet,” Altman said Tuesday when asked if there is a timeline for Bittle’s return.

In three games this season, the 7-foot Bittle is averaging 13.0 points and 6.0 rebounds per game on 46% shooting this season.

With Dante and Bittle sidelined, Mahamadou Diawara has been Oregon’s lone, healthy center. In 15 games, including nine starts, he is averaging 3.7 points and 4.5 rebounds in 16.1 minutes per game.

Standout freshman forward, Kwame Evans Jr., who is listed at 6-foot-9 and was expected to spend the majority of his minutes at the three and four positions this season, has often played as a center for the Ducks in a four-guard lineup.

Blue-chip freshmen Jackson Shelstad and Mookie Cook have both missed significant time due to injury, and senior guard Jesse Zarzuela is out for the season due to a foot injury.

Even still, the Ducks have raced out to a 12-3 start this season and are 4-0 in Pac-12 play.

“You try not to think ahead and you try not to get pessimistic,” Altman said when asked how Oregon has managed to find success despite the flurry of injuries it has faced. “You’ve gotta be real, though. We were small and (Diawara) hadn’t played much. I didn’t know what we had there. I thought he did a good job; (Evans) has come along and I didn’t know know if that would happen. … To be real honest, I didn’t know what was gonna happen.”

“We just came to practice every day with six, seven, eight guys or whatever we had on scholarship. Fortunately (walk-on forward James Cooper) has been good and (walk-on guard Gabe Reichle) has been unbelievable. Our walk-ons have done a tremendous job giving us something to look at every day.”