The Oregon Ducks' Basketball Season 24/25 

The Oregon Ducks’ Basketball 

By: Grady Little

Date: 03/10/2025

The Ducks looked like they were going to have a  good year. Center Nate Bittle was injured last season and had time to learn from N’Faly Dante, who is now in the NBA. Also,  Jackson Shelstad is a sophomore and is looking great coming into this season. Keeshawn Barthelemy was a junior last year and was injured. He led the team in scoring a couple games before he got injured. Here’s a summary of their season:

Game 1:  Oregon Ducks vs. UC Riverside

ESPN claimed Oregon had a 50.6% chance of winning. The first half started well with the Ducks up 15. The score was 51 to 36 and ESPN updated their chance of winning to 90.8%. Oregon ended up pulling off the win with a final score of 91 to 76. Oregon’s leading scorer was forward Kwame Evans JR with 23 pts. Oregon also led the game in rebounds with 11 rebounds from center Nate Bittle. Oregon did not lead the game in assists, UC Riverside did with 7 assists from Isiah Moses. This was a great start to the season, with Oregon starting off 1-0 and 1-0 at home.

Game  5:  Oregon Ducks vs. Oregon State

Coming into this rivalry game both teams were undefeated, this was going to be tough for the ducks. The Oregon Ducks were playing at Oregon State so that made it tougher on the ducks. The first half the score was 37 to 47, Oregon State was winning. This was expected because Oregon was playing at Oregon State, against their rivals so it was going to be a loud, intense game. Oregon State was looking good coming into this game undefeated. The second half was much better for the Ducks, Scoring 41 points and holding the Beavers to 28. The final score ended up being 78 to 75, another win for the Ducks! The Ducks continue their winning streak staying 5-0. The leading scorers of the game were Nate Bittle for Oregon with 23 points and Micheal Rataj for OSU with 20. 

Players Era Festival: Oregon Ducks vs Texas A&M Aggies

At the beginning of this game the Ducks knew it was going to be tough with the Aggies being ranked 20th in the country and the Ducks not in the top 25. The first half was very close with the Aggies up by 3, making the score 32 to 29. But they faced this last week against Oregon State when Oregon State was up 10. The second half,  the Ducks improved a lot, when there was 5 minutes left the game was tied at 66, then the Ducks started pulling away with 3 minutes left. Nate Bittle, scoring leader of the last game, dunked off an assist by Keeshawn Barthelemy, and put the Ducks up by 1 making it 70 to 69. Then with 1:22 minutes left, Kwame Evens Jr made a free throw, the score was now Ducks 71–OSU 70. With 15 seconds left the Ducks were up 80 to 70. The Ducks took down the 20th best team in the country!

The stats were Texas A&M had the leading scorer with 20 pts from Zhuric Phelps and also led in rebounds with 4. Oregon's leading scorer was TJ Bamba with 18 pts. 

Players Era Festival:  Oregon vs Alabama 

This game was a big game for Oregon because Alabama was ranked 9th in the country coming into this game. They had just taken down the 6th team in the country, the Houston Cougars. Also defeating ranked number 25 team Illinois. ESPN had Alabama with a 72.9% chance of winning. Halfway through the first half, Alabama was winning 23 to 21 and their chance of winning had gone up to 75.2%. Going into halftime, the score was tied 39 to 39. With 10 minutes left in the 2nd half, the score was 60 to 55 with Oregon winning. Oregon now had a 72.7% chance of winning, ESPN claimed. At the end of the game the Ducks won with a final score of 83–81. This was a very good win for the Ducks as defeating number caused 9 Alabama  to drop in the rankings.

The leading scorer was Keeshawn Barthelemy with 22 points on Oregon, Alabama's leading scorer was Labaron Philon with 15 points. Alabama won the game in rebounds with 44 in total, the main rebounder was Labaron Philon with 7 rebounds. 

Game 17:  Oregon vs Penn State

Oregon is now 15-2 and they are ranked 15th in the country and they are facing off against 12-5 Penn State. Oregon underestimated them but they were playing at Penn state and it's a long flight across the country so that makes it harder. The first half the score was 41 to 34 Oregon winning with a 77.3% chance. So there’s still a chance Penn State can come back. It was very close towards the end of the game with 2 minutes left, Penn state was up 2, making it 78 to 76. ESPN had them winning with a 62.9% chance. With 1 minute left the score was 78 to 78. At the end of the game Oregon won, staying ranked in the top 25. The final score was 82 to 81 and this was a very entertaining game to watch. 

Game  19:  Before Oregon vs Washington

At the time this article was written, Oregon was unranked with a record of 22–8. They still have a regular season game against Washington. The Ducks have a pretty good chance of making March Madness. Hopefully they do well in the tournament!