Throughout the preseason, the Pac-12 microsite will be rolling out these featured breakdowns of each of the 12 league schools. Today’s release is the Oregon Ducks.

Strengths: After having to share the spotlight with Devoe Joseph and Garrett Sim last season, E.J. Singler will get all the touches he can handle in 2012-13. The senior forward has the skill set to make an All-Pac-12 list by season’s end, but he’ll need some help so opponents don’t key in solely on him all game long. That’s where Arsalan Kazemi comes in. A late transfer from Rice, Kazemi had been projected by many to win the C-USA Player of the Year award in many preseason publications. Now he’s in Eugene, where head coach Dana Altman has described him as the best player in practice so far this October. Assuming the NCAA grants him a hardship waiver to play immediately, the Ducks go from a fringe NIT team to the NCAA bubble.

Weaknesses: If you’re wondering who will start in the backcourt, you’re in the same boat as Altman. Junior Johnathan Loyd will get the nod at the one spot, but while his passing game is one of the best in the league, his scoring ability leaves much to be desired. Whoever starts at the two is anyone’s guess, and we likely won’t know until the season opener against Northern Arizona. It could be junior walk-on Nicholas Lucenti, who played in all of five games last year for an astounding average of 0.0 PPG. Or it could very well be one of the six newcomers at the guard spot for 2012-13. Either way, the Ducks are going to be relying heavily on post play to put some points on the scoreboard.

It’s Tough To Find A Picture Of A Guy That Only Played 14 Minutes in 2011-12, But We Did It. Lucenti Could Possibly Be Oregon’s Starter At Shooting Guard Come November 10. (credit: Eric Evans)

Non-Conference Tests: The Ducks will face four stiff non-conference tests this season, three of which will come in an eight-day span in late November. Oregon will host Vanderbilt on November 16, and just seven days later will face #17 UNLV (RTC Poll used in this post) in the Thomas & Mack Center. Their strength of schedule would get a major boost if they faced a fringe Top 25 club in Cincinnati the next day instead of Iowa State. The final test will come on New Year’s Eve at Matthew Knight Arena against a possible NCAA bubble team in Nevada.

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1. One of the things we love about college basketball is that every year, there are loads and loads of teams with brand new looks. You’ve got freshmen coming in and transfers and kids back from injuries. The entire makeup of a team can change from year to year, for better or for worse. This year in the Pac-12 is no different, but in some cases, these changes seem to be a bit more extreme than normal, with several teams across the conference ready to unveil a completely remade roster. Today, as practices kick off around the country, we’ll take a look at five of those teams, beginning with Utah, where second-year head coach Larry Krystkowiak welcomes in a roster that returns just two scholarship players from last year’s 6-25 team. Given the depths to which the talent level plunged in Salt Lake City last year, the remake was desperately needed, and Krystkowiak is certain that the team is ready to be much more competitive. With 10 new scholarship faces on the roster, the battle for time is tight and ongoing, with the head man mentioning that the Ute starting lineup may be a shifting five over the course of the year.
2. As bad as the Utes were last year, USC was even worse, limping (quite literally) home to a 1-17 record. Along the way, the Trojans turned into the walking wounded with dozens, if not hundreds, of players (overstatement is of use here) lost for the season to injury. But not only does Kevin O’Neill have many of those players coming back from last year’s injuries, but he’s got transfers galore and, all told, plenty of talent up and down the bench. Never one for understatement, O’Neill last season called then sophomore center DeWayne Dedmon a future NBA lottery pick, while this year he is going out on a limb and projecting Rice transfer Omar Oraby as a future 12- or 13-year pro, although USC is still waiting on word from the NCAA as to whether he’ll receive a waiver to be able to play this year. But O’Neill is most excited about getting back the services of senior point guard Jio Fontan, whom he calls the heart and soul of the team.
3. Washington State’s 2011-12 season was slightly more successful than either of the above teams’, but like both USC and Utah, the Cougs will unveil a new-look squad as well. Brock Motum returns after his breakout junior season, as does returning starter DaVonte Lacy and four other players, but things are going to have to be different in Pullman this season. But despite being minus recently-dismissed point guard Reggie Moore, head coach Ken Bone thinks this will be a better team than last year, with the combo of Lacy and Kansas-transfer Royce Woolridge being an upgrade over the would-be senior. And Bone hopes that the Cougs’ underdog status will help the squad “pull together.” Reading between the lines a bit, it seems I may not be the only one who thinks the loss of Moore could turn out to be addition by subtraction.
4. Oregon advanced to the NIT last season, but after five graduating seniors and three freshmen transferring out of the program last year, the Ducks were in need of a talent infusion of their own. Enter a five-man freshman class, two junior college transfers, and Rice transfer Arsalan Kazemi (who is appealing to the NCAA for immediate eligibility), and returnee EJ Singler, for one, is excited about the additional size and athleticism added to Dana Altman’s roster. The number of new players could jump to nine once the football season ends, assuming freshman Arik Armstead joins the team in January, but the number could have even been 10. However, junior college transfer Devon Branch opted not to enroll at UO for the fall semester, instead opting to go the Division II route, which would give him one more season of eligibility than he would have had in Eugene.
5. The roster makeover for Washington is not as massive as in any of the above four stops, but the Huskies are without their two highest profile stars from last season’s Pac-12 regular season champion. Terrence Ross and Tony Wroten Jr. left eligibility on the table when they split for the NBA, but it was no secret that last year’s squad underachieved in part due to chemistry issues that never got fully resolved. Lorenzo Romar commented on Twitter that this team has the chemistry and attitude that the coaching staff appreciates, a remark that seems to draw a direct comparison to last year’s squad. Put on your special glasses and it might as well read: “last year’s team had no chemistry because there were too many guys worried about getting the credit.” There’s still plenty of talent up in Seattle, with proven upperclassmen Abdul Gaddy, C.J. Wilcox and Aziz N’Diaye leading the way, so if the intangibles shift a little in the right direction, the 2012-13 edition of the Huskies could be an improvement on last year’s more talented squad.

It’s that time again, as Adam Butler of Pachoops.com joins us again for our Burning Question for the Oregon program, concerning whether or not Dana Altman can build a successful program with constant player departures. 

Oregon has become the poster child for one of the biggest problems facing college basketball today: transfers. In his two seasons at Oregon, Dana Altman has seen four players transfer and five more who left the team that still had eligibility remaining when they land elsewhere. That’s an average of four and a half players that have left per year, an astronomical number for a 13-scholarship limit. It’s not like all of these players were sitting on the bench and not making an impact either; Malcom Armstead, Brett Kingma, Jabari Brown, and Bruce Barron were either making an impact or were expected to by the end of the season when they left. So the question is, can Altman build a successful program in Eugene with the constant cloud of player and rotation uncertainty hovering above, or does he need to change the way he recruits and coaches to find and keep players who will stay for three or four years?
 
Player Departures Since Altman Took Over In 2010-11

• Teondre Williams – Transferred to Clayton State
• Martin Seiferth – Transferred to Eastern Washington
• Malcolm Armstead – Transferred to Wichita State
• Nicholas Fearn – Left team but has yet to enroll in another school
• Matt Losli – Left team but has yet to enroll in another school
• John Elorriaga – Left team but has yet to enroll in another school
• Brett Kingma – Left team but has yet to enroll in another school
• Jabari Brown – Transferred to Missouri
• Bruce Barron – Left team but has yet to enroll in another school

Altman Has Had Much To Celebrate In His First Two Seasons At Oregon Despite Losing Nine Players Since He Took The Job

Adam Butler: Yes. Dana Altman has proven he can build a winner – he did so at Creighton – and I believe he’ll do the same in Eugene. He’s already exceeded expectations in his first two years with a pair of postseason appearances after the Ducks took one of the fastest falls from the Elite Eight to a 2-16 conference team that anyone has ever seen. And maybe that’s where we need to start. Sinking ships tend to have jumpers (Never let go, Jack), and so round one of the transfers I’m comfortable chalking up to the old guard recognizing they were Kent guys in the wrong place. Altman isn’t your guy and you’re not his. A mutual parting. To address the others and to do such without making grandiose excuses for nine total transfers in two years, perhaps we need an analogy.

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We’ve gone through the Oregon roster and told you about the returnees and the newcomers, but let’s put it all together today: What does the 2012-13 season hold for the Ducks? Just how good will returnees like E.J. Singler, Tony Woods, and Carlos Emory be, and which of the newcomers will emerge as major contributors? And most importantly, can these Ducks match or improve upon last year’s NIT appearance? Let’s break out that old crystal ball again and see what it says.

Singler’s A Small Forward That Can Knock Down The Three (credit: Andy Wooldridge)

UO’s Leading Scorer – E.J. Singler. With Devoe Joseph now out of the picture, Singler will get all the touches he can handle in the Duck offense. That can be both good and bad as opponents will surely key in on the senior until another consistent scorer emerges. Singler is an athletic three who is able to get open on the wing, so he needs a good point guard to get him the ball. Johnathan Loyd will start the season there and showed flashes of brilliance last season. Incoming freshman Dominic Artis will back him up, a slashing one-guard who can use his small frame to cut through seams in a defense.

UO’s MVP – Carlos Emory. Emory emerged as a major scoring threat towards the end of 2011-12 and will be the go-to guy in the post this season. Emory can play both the three and four, but due to a serious lack of scoring big men on the roster, he’ll spend most of his time as a power forward.

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On the heels of last year’s good recruiting class, head coach Dana Altman landed a huge six-man class this season, signing two recruits from traditional southern Nevada powerhouses, a pair of small forwards from southeastern Texas, and two shooting guards from a midwestern high school and community college, respectively. We’ll also take a look at a much-needed lane clogging big man who redshirted in 2011-12. We’ll break all seven of them down below, roughly in the order of the contributions we expect from them.

Dominic Artis, Freshman, Point Guard, 5’11” 165 lbs, Findlay College Prep, Henderson, NV – Artis’ height and frame will remind Duck fans of former Oregon point guard Aaron Brooks. He is a speedster with handles and his slight frame allows him to easily fit into seams in the defense and find teammates around the perimeter. He is definitely able to knock down the three-point ball, but consistency is a whole different matter. If he wants to really make an impact this season, Artis needs to keep defenders from focusing on E.J. Singler and Carlos Emory down low and be a threat from behind the arc. Regardless, the freshman could find his way onto the court with tight, lockdown defense. Oregon’s D outside of the paint last season was mediocre at best, bordering on bad, and with their best defender in Devoe Joseph graduating, there is a need for a new top defender. It’s tough for any point guard to be an impact immediately in a power conference, but Artis definitely has the most talent, and potential, of all seven newcomers. With the departure of Garrett Sim, Artis is in a prime position to replace his minutes. The only question remains is this: Will Oregon’s star recruit transfer two games or less into the season, as last year’s did?

Artis Makes Up For What He Lacks In Size With Quickness (credit: Jann Hendry)

Damyean Dotson, Freshman, Small Forward, 6’6” 181 lbs, Jack Yates Senior High School, Houston, TX – Once again we meet a player who could earn early minutes thanks to his defensive ability. Dotson can guard the one, two, or three, but is tough enough to rebound down low as well. He also has a long wingspan, making him a shot-blocking threat. According to reports, Dotson will do a lot of damage as a help defender and trapper when the Ducks are in a zone. As a senior at Jack Yates HS, Dotson averaged 21 PPG and 5 RPG, good enough to garner the title of 2012 Greater Houston Player of the Year by the Houston Chronicle. He had offers from Dayton, Colorado, and Georgetown, among others, before deciding on Oregon.

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Oregon returns four players who were part of the extended rotation last year, highlighted by E.J. Singler – a second-team All-Pac-12 player – but also extending down to a center back for his senior season who made tremendous strides towards the end of 2011-12, another senior big man who became a major part of the offense in the second half of conference play, and a junior-to-be point guard who is ready to become the team’s main distributor. We’ll go through all of those guys below, in order of last year’s scoring totals.

E.J. Singler, Shown Here Battling His Brother Kyle Singler For A Rebound, Will Be The Key To Any Duck Success In 2012-13 (credit: Jonathan Ferrey)

E.J. Singler, Senior, Forward (13.6 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 0.4 BPG) – With his brother already starring at Duke, Singler entered his freshman year in Eugene with high expectations. But despite being a major part of the rotation, his freshman campaign could have been classified as a disappointment. However, he bounced back to average 11.7 PPG and 5.6 RPG in his sophomore year, and he was arguably the team’s top defender as well. In 2011-12, Singler combined with guard Devoe Joseph to make a perfect scoring combination. The two kept opponents guessing on the defensive end, and combined with Garrett Sim, were unstoppable throughout stretches of a game. Now that Joseph and Sim have graduated, it will be interesting to see how the offense runs early on with only one known scorer. Johnathan Loyd can shoot the ball, but he is more of a true one guard. The job of replacing the points left by Joseph and Sim will likely fall to incoming freshman Fred Richardson III, and if he can step out and hit the three consistently, the pressure on Singler’s shoulders will be lifted.

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1. UCLA head coach Ben Howland’s recruiting success with the 2012 class went a long way towards re-establishing the thriving program we had come to expect after his first few seasons in Westwood, but questions remained about what he could do in the future. Some of those questions were answered this past week when Howland earned a commitment from 2013 guard Zach LaVine, a four-star player out of Bothell, Washington. LaVine has the reputation of a point guard prospect, but has enough size and scoring ability that he could play either position at the next level. Aside from getting UCLA’s 2013 class off to a strong start, it also shows Howland’s ability to go into other states and steal local kids from his Pac-12 opponents, as Washington, for one, certainly considered themselves a strong candidate to land LaVine.
2. Speaking of Washington, head coach Lorenzo Romar confirmed this week that they are “pretty much done” with the 2012 recruiting class. Assuming no last minute surprises emerge, the new class for the Huskies is made up of just junior college transfer Mark McLaughlin and San Francisco transfer Perry Blackwell, who will not be eligible until 2013-14. However, Ben Knibbe of the UW Dawg Pound tells UW fans not to worry, because Romar has designs on a monster 2013 class, with his staff hot in pursuit of #1 overall recruit Jabari Parker as well as three other top-15 recruits: Aaron Gordon, Jabari Bird and Isaac Hamilton.
3. Also on the Lorenzo Romar front, he is the latest Pac-12 coach to hop aboard the Twitter express, signing up for the social media platform this week as @CoachRomar. With Arizona head coach Sean Miller buying in last week, now more than half of the league’s coaches have a Twitter feed, some of which are used more than others. However, if you California fans out there are waiting for Mike Montgomery to start tweeting, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
4. Sean Miller, meanwhile, had plenty to be happy about, as he inked a contract extension with Arizona in the last week that will keep him prowling the sidelines (and, likewise, will keep the Wildcats very relevant nationally) through at least 2016-17. In his three seasons in Tucson, he has posted a 69-35 record with a Coach of the Year award and an Elite Eight mixed in, despite missing the NCAA Tournament twice over that span. While missing NCAA Tournaments is definitely not something that Wildcats fans are used to, most understand that Miller has done an excellent job keeping this program chugging along, especially considering his top three national recruiting class this past offseason.
5. Lastly, David Piper of Addicted to Quack writes that this 2012 Oregon recruiting class will determine whether the Dana Altman era in Eugene will ultimately be considered a success or not. With 12 of the 16 most-recent Duck recruits having transferred out of the program, Altman needs to show that he can not only bring in quality recruits, but that he can keep them and use them to get Oregon back into the NCAA Tournament. Four-star point guard Dominic Artis heads the 2012 class, and he could be a key cog over the next four years, provided of course that he remains in the program.

1. A former Pac-12 great is back home, as 2000 Stanford graduate Mark Madsen is returning back to the Farm to become an assistant coach. Madsen was a member of the 1998 Cardinal team that made the Final Four (the first Stanford team to advance that far since the NCAA championship team of 1942), before going on to play nine seasons in the NBA. He’ll take over the spot vacated by Dick Davey, who retired in March. Madsen will work with post players and give current head coach Johnny Dawkins’ staff a tie to the most successful stretch of basketball in the modern history of the program. We’re just guessing that Madsen isn’t going to moonlight as a dance teacher at Stanford.
2. Oregon fans got bad news yesterday when it was confirmed that sophomore guard Brett Kingma, a sharpshooter who saw limited minutes and limited success as a freshman, would be transferring out of the program. In the wake of the Ducks losing both starting backcourt players from last year, Kingma appeared set for a bump in minutes, but instead he’ll choose to sit out a year and likely take a step down in competition for the remainder of his college career. While it is certainly well within Kingma’s right to find a place more suited to him, this once again appears to be a case of a youngster making a rash decision early in his career as a result of limited playing time. With Kingma’s decision, now three out of four members of Dana Altman’s 2011 recruiting class have left the school before their sophomore seasons.
3. Arizona’s 2012-13 schedule is rapidly rounding into shape, as they announced an agreement with UTEP this week for a home-and-home series that will begin on November 15 at the McKale Center. The second half of this series won’t take place until 2014-15 in El Paso. With this announcement, the Wildcats have just one remaining open spot on their 2012-13 schedule, which is expected to be another home-and-home series, this one with a power conference school that will begin on the road. With games at home against Long Beach State, Southern Miss, Florida and Oral Roberts already on the schedule, along with a trip to Clemson and visit to the Diamond Head Classic over Christmas weekend, the ‘Cats certainly shouldn’t be hurting for chances to pad their non-conference resume.
4. Sticking around in Tucson a bit longer, Wildcat head coach Sean Miller won the “Shots From the Heart” championship, a free-throw-shooting contest between NCAA Division I head basketball coaches in support of the American Heart Association and the Skip Prosser Foundation. Miller won the final round of the competition by knocking down 24 of 25 attempts in the final round, defeating Detroit head coach Ray McCallum who made just 21 of his 25 attempts. Over the six rounds of the tournament, Miller made 145 of his 150 attempts, good for 96.7%, an absurd number. If you want to congratulate him, or see if he can drop some free throw shooting tips on you, hit him up on his new Twitter account which he just began a few weeks back.
5. Lastly, this week ESPN unveiled its list of the most attractive coaching jobs in college basketball, broken down by conference. In the Pac-12, there certainly weren’t a ton of surprises, with UCLA, Arizona and Washington taking the top three spots, but there are definitely some areas to quibble with their rankings. First and foremost, the idea that Utah is the third-worst position in the conference is absurd. For a school in a basketball-crazy state with a sparkling reputation at lower levels, you have to think the Utes should be near the top half of the conference, certainly ahead of a USC job where, although there are plenty of recruits to choose from in the local area, the Trojan basketball team will always play second fiddle to the crosstown UCLA program, not to mention the Trojans’ storied football program.

1. We’re at that time of the year when we the rosters start to solidify. Most of the key recruits have made their picks, and teams are beginning to add the finishing touches to their recruiting classes. For instance this week Washington State added junior college big man James Hunter, a guy who will have three seasons of eligibility in Pullman. Hunter is a raw work-in-progress, but he is a good athlete who runs the floor well and could be a good body for the Cougs in future years. Meawhile, Oregon got a commitment from combo guard Willie Moore, the sixth player signed by Dana Altman so far this season. Moore had originally committed to Duquesne, but was released from his letter of intent after the Dukes fired head coach Ron Everhart.
2. The signing of Moore leaves the Ducks with just one remaining scholarship for the 2012-13 season, and they’re certainly hoping that they get good news about their seventh signee of the year in the coming days, as power forward Anthony Bennett, rated the seventh-best recruit in this class (by ESPNU) is expected to choose between Oregon and UNLV. Oregon is also still in the mix for Chris Obekpa, a center ranked in the top 100 recruits as well, meaning that Moore’s signing likely indicates that the Ducks have received word that they’re unlikely to land one or both of those players. And while some in the UO community seem pleased that the Ducks at least outlasted Kentucky and Florida on Bennett’s list, taking second place in a recruiting battle is no win at all. Bennett is expected to announce his decision in the next week, although he is clearly in no hurry.
3. The other bit of intrigue remaining in the summer are the landing spots for the multitude of transfers still uncommitted. For Arizona State transfer Trent Lockett, that decision is already in the books, as last weekend he announced his decision to transfer to Marquette. Lockett, who has already earned his degree in business communications, wanted to be closer to his mother, who has been diagnosed with cancer.
4. Once all the 2012 commitments are complete, the next big thing around the conference will be the summer trips. UCLA announced its long-rumored trip to China this week, a venture that could accomplish plenty for both the team and the conference. Most important for the Bruins is the chance to get in extra work during the summer for a talented team chock-full of newcomers. Ben Howland will get a chance to put his team through 10 practices prior the team’s flight to China on August 21. Once there, the Bruins will play a handful of Chinese teams that are expected to be “the equivalent of NCAA competition,” according to Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott. The team will likely also get a crack at the Chinese national team during its visit. The other benefit of the trip is the beginning of Scott’s master plan to take the Pac-12 brand to Asia. Scott expects that this will be the first of yearly trips by Pac-12 teams to China for similar summer events. Washington also announced it own plans for a summer international trip, with an itinerary that will take the Huskies to Spain, France, Monaco and Senegal. The visit to Senegal will be especially important, given that it is the home country of senior center Aziz N’Diaye. The Huskies will play one game in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, as well as putting on several basketball clinics elsewhere in the country.
5. Lastly, a good story to read about. Utah senior guard Josh “Jiggy” Watkins was kicked off the Ute basketball team in January. But, instead of taking the easy route and quitting school, Watkins stuck around Salt Lake City and, last week, earned his bachelor’s degree in sociology. Watkins and his mom met with Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak prior to the ceremony and Watkins admits that, while it was hard to have basketball taken away from him, he harbors no ill will towards his former coach and still thinks of him as a “great coach.” Watkins now expects to pursue a professional basketball career overseas, and we here at RTC wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. It was a rough senior season basketball-wise for Watkins, but in the end, he finished off a major accomplishment. Well done, Josh.