Stage Set For Oregon's Big Dance

PITTSBURGH — For a group mostly lacking in NCAA Tournament experience, the Oregon men's basketball team seemed comfortable on the March Madness stage during its first 24 hours in Pennsylvania.

The recently crowned Pac-12 Tournament champions travelled to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, arriving in time to get in a quick workout that evening. Wednesday brought the first real pomp and circumstance of the Big Dance, a press conference and workout at the site of Thursday's first-round game, PPG Paints Arena, followed by practice a couple of blocks away at Duquesne's UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.

The Ducks (23-11) are the No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament's Midwest Regional. They'll face sixth-seeded South Carolina in the first round Thursday (1 p.m. PT, TNT).

As N'Faly Dante settled into his chair for Wednesday's press conference, he leaned back and greeted the room full of reporters and tournament staff with a bright smile.

"Good morning everybody," he said. "How are you?"

Dante is the lone member of Oregon's last tournament team, from 2021, though he was sidelined from midseason with a knee injury. Guard Keeshawn Barthelemy played in that 2021 tournament, while he was at Colorado. But that event was isolated in a bubble due to the pandemic, and he won't play in this postseason due to injury.

That's the extent of the Ducks' experience on the stage where they now find themselves. But if that was supposed to produce any nervousness, it wasn't apparent Wednesday.

"I don't think there's anything to be nervous about," Dante said. "(I'll) just do whatever I can for the team to win. …

"I was there when I was hurt, and I think it was motivation for me to do whatever I can to help my team to get here. Now we're here, we just gotta go — last time we went to the Sweet Sixteen, and we've got bigger vision than that."

Dante participated in Wednesday's press conference alongside guard Jermaine Couisnard, Oregon's other senior leader. Couisnard is a transfer from South Carolina, Oregon's opponent Thursday, and Couisnard fielded several questions about the matchup.

Like Dante, Couisnard was cool, calm and collected when asked about seeing his former school as the bracket was revealed Sunday.

"It was amazing for me, just seeing how far the program came and how the coach has done a good job with them guys over there," Couisnard said. "It was something that we all wanted when we all was there. So it was like we all got what we wanted."

Dante and Couisnard have set the tone for the Ducks all season. That being the case, UO coach Dana Altman had to like their demeanor Wednesday, as they took in the setting for Thursday's game with evident poise.

"I want the guys to enjoy it, to relax a little bit, but also let them know we've got a job to do," Altman said while speaking with media just after the two players did. "They handled the conference tournament well. I thought they approached each ball game with a degree of professionalism and were ready to go. I thought the older guys got the freshmen focused and ready to go. So I'm not worried about this group."

After the press conference, the Ducks took the court at PPG Paints Arena for the first time. This is the second week in a row Oregon will play in an arena that houses a pro hockey team; for the Pac-12 Tournament it was the Vegas Golden Knights' T-Mobile Arena, and this week it's the home of the five-time Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Ducks did more live team drills Wednesday than they typically would, to help players get their legs under them following Tuesday's flight. For Oregon's shooters, Wednesday's workout was a chance to adjust to a slightly different background; T-Mobile's lower bowl is more vertical than PPG Paints Arena, whose lower deck rises at a less extreme angle. This is also the second week in a row the Ducks will use a basketball manufactured by Wilson, after using a Nike ball most of the year.

So in several key ways, the Pac-12 Tournament prepared the Ducks for elements of this week's opening game of the NCAA Tournament. Altman said South Carolina reminds him in ways of how UCLA plays defensively, and how Washington State plays offensively. Hopefully that helps as well, for an Oregon team that enters the NCAA Tournament riding a wave of momentum from its Pac-12 Tournament title.

"I want to draw from those wins. I think we did some really good things — we got the ball to Dante, that was a good thing," Altman said. "We want to draw from those things that we did well. We need some more contributions from some of our guys. They've gotta get a few more loose balls, gotta get a few more rebounds. Defensively, some of our guys gotta do a little better job. But no, I want those guys to feel good about themselves coming in.

"We know we're going to have to play really well; we knew we had to play really well in the three games in Vegas. UCLA was playing good. Arizona was playing good. Colorado had won eight or nine in a row. So we knew we had to play well there. And we know we're going to have to play well tomorrow."