A trio of starters return, but the top offseason storyline for Oregon men’s basketball will be replacing the dynamic duo that departs.
The Ducks will lose their two senior leaders from a year ago in center N'Faly Dante and guard Jermaine Couisnard, an all-Pac-12 pairing that helped Oregon win the final Pac-12 tournament and advance to the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Dante was denied a waiver from the NCAA for a sixth season of eligibility and last week his appeal was denied, officially ending his collegiate career.
The void they leave is substantial. Oregon increasingly relied on Dante and Couisnard as the season went on as they averaged 30.9 points per game in the regular season and 45.6 in the postseason.
The duo scored 123 of the team’s 160 points across two NCAA tournament games.
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Oregon is also losing transfers Brennan Rigsby and Kario Oquendo.
Coach Dana Altman will first lean on the continuity and progression from the rest on the roster to replace the lost production. Guards Jackson Shelstad and Jadrian Tracey and forward Kwame Evans Jr. started all five of the Ducks’ postseason games in 2024, and figure to slot in as key contributors again next season.
Guard Keeshawn Barthelemy, forward Mookie Cook and center Nate Bittle— Oregon’s three other returning rotation pieces— should all provide boosts to the lineup after 2023-24 campaigns plagued by injury.
Bittle, in particular, is one to watch as the team’s presumptive starting center. The 7-footer, who missed 31 games last season with a wrist injury and late-season illness, was a prized 2021 recruit. He provides a new dimension from the center position as a career 32.9% 3-point shooter, but will need to step up as a rebounder and rim protector to replace Dante down low.
With incoming freshman Ibrahima Traore the only other true center on next year’s roster, expect Altman to utilize the transfer portal for Bittle’s backup.
The coach has already added three Division I transfers at other positions this offseason. Fans may remember guard TJ Bamba from his three years with Washington State. The former Cougar played last season with Villanova, averaging 10.1 points per game in 33 starts, before opting to return to the Pacific Northwest in May. His 6-foot-5, 215-pound frame gives the Ducks some size on the perimeter.
Oregon added another former Pac-12 product in ex-Stanford forward Brandon Angel. The 6-foot-8 Angel is coming off a breakout senior season with the Cardinal in which he averaged a career-high 13 points and 4.7 rebounds per game.
Bamba and Angel provide experience at the highest level, with 231 career games between them, and 3-point shooting for an Oregon team that ranked ninth in the Pac-12 at 33.8% last season. Angel was the conference’s top marksman last season at 44.7%, while Bamba is a career 38% shooter from deep.
Former Toledo guard Ra'Heim Moss isn’t much of a shooter, but he fits the mold of a classic Altman-era guard. Moss earned both first team all-MAC and all-MAC defensive team honors as a junior last season after averaging 15.5 points, 5.4 rebounds, 3 assists and 1.7 steals per game— similar numbers to Couisnard’s 16.6 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.6 steals a night.
Altman also added a junior-college transfer from Florida for the third consecutive offseason in former Florida Southwestern State College forward Dez Lindsay, a 6-foot-7 wing with three years of eligibility remaining.
Linsey follows in the footsteps of Tracey and guard Brennan Rigsby as JUCO products from the sunshine state. Rigsby, however, won’t join Lindsey and Tracey on the court next season. He and guard Kario Oquendo are the only two Ducks to leave the program via the transfer portal, marking Oregon’s fewest outgoing transfers in a single offseason since 2018.
On the coaching staff, Tony Stubblefield returns to Eugene after a three-year stint as DePaul’s head coach. Stubblefield was on Altman’s staff as an assistant coach from 2010 to 2021.
Oregon was on the brink of missing the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive season before Dante and Couisnard stepped up in the postseason.
Altman, in turn, is relying on a two-step approach— a combination of roster continuity and experienced transfer portal additions— to replace the two stars.
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