The Boilermakers battle the Ducks in the second leg of their west coast swing.
Oregon on Offense
Point guard Jackson Shelstad runs the show for the Ducks. The former top 30 player in the 2023 class leads the team in minutes played and doesn’t particularly have a substitute. In their win over Penn State, he logged a team-leading 37 minutes, putting up a team-high 17 points and eight assists without committing a turnover. It is worth noting that Penn State’s star point guard, Ace Baldwin, was unable to play due to a back injury. The Nittany Lions came close to pulling off an upset at the Bryce Jordan Center, falling just a point short, 82–81.
Shelstad is a tough cover because he can play both on and off the ball. When he’s on the ball, Oregon runs a fair number of high screens and lets him probe with the dribble. The Ducks’ offense usually starts with all five players above the free-throw line extended, with center Nate Bittle either setting the screen and rolling to the basket or popping out and allowing Shelstad to play one-on-one with no help defense.
While Jadrian Tracey is the nominal starter at shooting guard, the Ducks frequently turn to reserve Keeshawn Barthelemy. When Shelstad and Barthelemy are in the lineup together, they take turns running the point and playing off the ball. After watching a few games, this lineup concerns me the most in terms of the Ducks’ overall performance. Barthelemy shoots a team-leading 45% from three-point range (31-of-69) and leads the team in assist rate at 20.2% (slightly better than Shelstad’s 17.7%).
When they’re on the court together, Oregon can split the court vertically, placing a point guard on either side. This setup puts immense pressure on the defense. You can’t leave Barthelemy open, but you also can’t ignore forward Brandon Angel, who is shooting 37% from three. The only perimeter player who isn’t a consistent deep threat is small forward TJ Bamba, who is shooting just 28% from three but takes more attempts than his percentage suggests he should. You can help off Bamba, but a word of warning: what he lacks in shooting, he makes up for in attacking the rim. If he sees an opening, he won’t hesitate to drive. He’s drawing a team-high 5.3 fouls per 40 minutes and is at his best when playing downhill.
I mentioned that I prefer the lineup featuring Barthelemy and Shelstad over Shelstad and Tracey. That’s a personal preference, even though Tracey is arguably their most efficient offensive player. He’s shooting 40% from three and leads the team in effective field goal percentage at 61%. He’s yet another player you can’t leave open. When Oregon puts its best three perimeter shooters on the floor (Shelstad, Barthelemy, Tracey) alongside Brandon Angel (37%) and Nate Bittle (30%), it creates a dilemma for the defense. You either guard your man tightly or give up an open three to a capable shooter. Oregon often goes five-out in these situations, allowing one of the three guards to drive. If the defense helps, they kick to the open man; if not, they try to finish at the rim. Purdue needs to force them to finish at the rim instead of giving up open threes. Statistically, they’re not a great three-point shooting team overall, but that’s skewed by Bittle (15-of-50) and Bamba (14-of-50). Their guards and forward Brandon Angel, however, are all capable of catching fire. In their road win over Ohio State, they shot 9-of-25 from deep, including a 4-of-6 performance from Shelstad and 4-of-8 from Bittle. They went 8-of-22 from deep in their win over Penn State, with Shelstad hitting 3-of-5 and Barthelemy 3-of-6. Helping against Oregon is a bit like Russian roulette—your hope is that the ball lands with Bamba or Bittle, not Barthelemy, Tracey, or Angel.
Seven-foot center Nathan Bittle is Jackson Shelstad’s right-hand man. Bittle leads the team in scoring at 14 points per game, and the mobile big man is tough to guard. He shoots too many threes for my liking, but he’s capable of making them. It’s not that I don’t want him shooting; I just prefer him working down low, where he can rise up and shoot over shorter defenders or use his footwork and long arms to maneuver around slower ones. He’s also a solid post passer. Oregon frequently isolates him in the post and then sends a weak-side wing diving to the basket late. They caught Ohio State napping on the weak side multiple times, often resulting in easy buckets.
Overall, I like how the Ducks play. It’s an entertaining brand of basketball. When they get the defense rotating, they whip the ball around the perimeter until they find an open shot. They share the basketball well, but when things break down, Shelstad and Bamba are tough to keep out of the paint. It’s strange … looking at their KenPom metrics, they’re not elite at anything on offense. They shoot 35% from three, 54% from two, and only 75% from the free-throw line. Yet they have the 21st-most efficient offense in the nation, according to KenPom. They boast wins over Texas A&M and Penn State (something Purdue can’t claim) and scored 80+ points in both games. Scouting them is a headache because, unlike Purdue’s “big three,” Oregon’s key players rotate. Focus on taking one away, and another talented player steps up. This is a game where Purdue needs to focus on guarding their own matchups as much as possible because Oregon will punish defensive rotations, especially at home.
Oregon on Defense
The first thing I’m interested in when analyzing an opposing defense is how they guard the pick-and-roll. When teams run the 1-5 pick-and-roll against the Ducks, more often than not, Biddle will play drop coverage, giving the ball handler an opportunity to pull up off the screen and shoot. Biddle, an athletic 7’0”, will step out to contest, but I think his primary task will be to ensure Braden doesn’t turn the corner and get into the lane. If Smith wants the mid-range pull-up, it should be available all game. The same goes for Fletcher and TKR’s floaters off the short roll. I like Purdue’s ability to attack the pick-and-roll without needing to get all the way to the rim, where Biddle’s 7.2% block rate ranks 76th in the country. That statistic doesn’t even account for the shots teams avoid taking because he’s defending the rim. When Purdue does challenge Biddle at the rim, they need to get into his body and go through him; it’s tough to go around or over his long arms.
Oregon’s defense is a bit like their offense. They’re not great at anything—they’re not even particularly good at most things when you look at individual analytics—but overall, their defensive efficiency is a respectable 40th in the nation. Good teams can score on them, but their defense tends to be just good enough for their offense to win games. They’ve pulled out close wins against Alabama (83–81), Maryland (83–79), and Penn State (82–81). Purdue needs to bring consistent shooting for more than one half against the Ducks, as Oregon’s offense will put pressure on Purdue to keep up.
Overall
Oregon is a good, veteran basketball team playing on their home court after six days off. Purdue, on the other hand, is on the second game of their West Coast journey, and travel tends to take a toll. In terms of game circumstances, I’d rather be the Ducks than the Boilermakers in this one. Personally, I think Purdue having to relocate to the West Coast for a week to play conference basketball games is incredibly stupid, but no one asked my opinion.
On a neutral floor, I like Purdue, but I don’t like how things are stacking up against the Boilermakers in this matchup. It’s going to take a better effort than they’ve shown on the road so far this season. They’ve had some poor shooting nights away from Mackey, and if this turns out to be one of those nights where the shots don’t fall, it’s going to be hard to beat an Oregon team with home-court advantage and a plethora of scoring options.
Prediction
KenPom
Oregon 75 – Purdue 74
Confidence: 79%
Drew
Oregon 84 – Purdue 77
KenPom sees this as a coin flip game, with a slight nod to Oregon. I’m a little more pessimistic, only because I don’t trust Purdue’s shooting on the road. The Rutgers and Washington games have me spooked, and they can’t beat Oregon without shooting well. I’ll take the Ducks in a hard-fought game. Purdue doesn’t get a return game in Mackey because I hate this schedule, which would make this a tough loss in the Big 10 race.
If they shoot well, they win. I’m skeptical, but it’s well within their ability.