After breezing by in exhibition games versus Northwest Christian (92-44) and Southern Oregon (91-40), the Oregon men’s basketball team will officially open its season Friday against Jackson State. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. at Matthew Knight Arena.
The following Monday, the Ducks will square up with No. 22 ranked Baylor on ESPN 2.
No different than the exhibition games, head coach Dana Altman will be without Jordan Bell (foot) and Villanova transfer Dylan Ennis (foot) for opening weekend while they recover from injuries. According to Altman, Bell was scheduled to meet with doctors this past Wednesday for further examination. But as of now, “he’s moving well.”
In the meantime, Altman said he’s going to go with all nine of his scholarship players as the rotation remains thin until further notice. This will give younger players like Tyler Dorsey an opportunity to get more minutes and get acclimated to the Division I level.
“We’ll probably look at all nine guys on scholarship,” Altman said. “It’s not that big a group, especially the way the NCAA rules committee is, they’re really looking to call those fouls close. We’re going to have very closely called games early in the year. We may have to dip into our bench, also.”
With no prior meeting with Jackson State, the Ducks will be going on what they’ve seen on film. And while they were relatively vague with their scouting report at Wednesday’s availability, players and coaches did describe their first opponent as “very athletic.”
Last season, the Tigers (Southwestern Athletic Conference) went 11-21.
“We’ve only got one film from them this year,” Altman said. “They’re athletic, they got four starters back and they brought in a couple guards that are talented.”
All eyes will be on Oregon’s second matchup of the season, which will arguably be their toughest non-conference test of the season. Baylor, who made an early exit in last year’s NCAA tournament as a No. 3 seed, begins the season ranked in the AP Top 25.
“Baylor will be a big challenge on Monday, there’s no doubt about that,” Altman said. “I’m not sure if we’re ready for a game like that.”
They return last year’s top two scorers Taurean Prince (13.9 PPG) and Rico Gathers (11.6 PPG). As a team, they have eight upperclassmen in total.
For Oregon, these first two games will serve as an early test. Altman, who has been preaching having a sense of urgency to his team, fully knows that the Bears will be an important game on Oregon’s schedule when it’s all said and done.
“It’s real urgent (right now),” Cook said. “We got to get focused. You just got to put it all together.”
As a team that is currently the first team looking from the outside in, Oregon will have an opportunity to crack next week’s rankings if things go their way. More importantly, this will be a good early season indicator for what this roster really has under the hood.
Follow Hayden Kim on Twitter @HayDayKim