Nate Bittle returns for Oregon's blowout win over Arizona State
Oregon Ducks center Nate Bittle returned to the court in Matthew Knight Arena to a loud ovation from the Eugene crowd tonight, after missing the last 15 games since suffering a wrist injury vs. Tennessee State on Nov. 18. His limited efforts led to an 80-61 blowout win against the Arizona State Sun Devils.
Head coach Dana Altman elected to start Bittle alongside his fellow frontcourt big man, N’Faly Dante, a pairing that hasn’t played much on the floor this season due to their respective injuries. To prevent further stress on his injury, Bittle wore a protective white bandage wrapped around his left hand and wrist. Bittle, who was on a minutes restriction, played only 12 minutes, with a majority of those coming in the first half.
Bittle appeared to be in decent game shape, considering he hasn’t played a game in over two months. Given that his injury was his hand and not a lower-body injury, he likely was able to participate in the team’s conditioning in practice. Tonight, he remained active in getting up and down the floor in transition and would look for early rim runs in the paint when Dante wasn’t on the floor with him. His first basket of the night was an empathic, high-arcing three from the right wing on Oregon’s opening possession.
When the two did share the floor, Dante was the primary rim runner, staying in the paint to get his post touches and initiate the offense. One of Bittle’s greatest offensive advantages given his size is his ability to shoot the ball from the perimeter. Just the threat of his shot forced ASU’s defense to spread out, creating openings in the lane for guards like Keeshawn Barthelemy, who finished with 12 points, and Jermaine Couisnard, who led the Ducks with 19.
On the defensive side of the ball is where having Bittle and Dante on the court together is quite intriguing. Having two true big men who can protect the rim and anchor the backline of your defense is pretty rare in college basketball. Both Bittle and Dante are athletic enough to hold their own in spurts against smaller defenders that get switched onto them on the perimeter. But the benefit of having them both out there is that if one does get blown by, the defense still has a rim protector.
It will be interesting to see how Altman tinkers with the pairing of his two 7-footers in future lineups. While they did start together tonight, they played limited minutes together. As of now, with both of them getting back into mid-season game shape, Altman seems to prefer to stagger their minutes.
In their upcoming marquee matchup against the No. 9 ranked Arizona Wildcats, both Bittle and Dante will be needed against Arizona’s dominant forwards, last year’s March Madness standout Keshad Johnson and this season’s Pac-12 preseason player of the year, Oumar Ballo.
