*EDIT 8/13: N'Faly Dante, a 6’11 5-star freshman has officially reclassified to the 2019 class. Dante has a 7’5 wingspan and should be immediately weaponized as a defensive centerpiece for the Ducks.

Outlook: To any filmmakers out there looking to capture the 2018-19 Oregon Ducks basketball in movie form, I’d like to propose the following working title: “The Mighty Ducks Hit the Hardwood”

For those unfamiliar with the 1992 Disney classic, it follows the quintessential sports movie plot line: Team struggles at first. Team bonds over extreme adversity and bands together. Team completes turnaround and achieves ultimate goal against all odds. This narrative is directly applicable to the 2019 Oregon Ducks basketball team, who were suddenly strapped to a rocket ship when the calendar turned to March after meddling around in the Pac-12 purgatory for much of the year.

There’s no need to waste time dissecting the root causes of the Ducks’ early season struggles. Not only were there many variables at play, but my colleague Jim Root already waded into this territory last November, a few days removed from an embarrassing home loss to Texas Southern. The light bulb wouldn’t flick on until a few months later, but when it did, that ray of light blinded every team that stood in the Ducks’ way from February 28th onward.

As I cited in my NCAA tournament South regional breakdown, Payton Pritchard is the pulse of the Ducks’ offense. At his core, Pritchard is a pass-first lead guard and willing facilitator, but his innate unselfishness often comes at the expense of not being in attack mode. He’s simply too gifted of a shooter and scorer not to hunt his own shot - when he started to be more assertive offensively, the Oregon offense started firing on all cylinders.

The chart below shows Pritchard’s stat splits from the beginning of conference play until the end of February (‘Before 2/27’), compared to the end of February through the end of the season (‘Since 2/27’). For those who were stuck under a rock during the month of March last year, the Ducks’ rattled off 10 wins in a row before running into the eventual national champion Virginia Cavaliers in the Sweet-16: