Josh Holmberg-USA TODAY Sports
The Oregon Ducks are not known for being a powerhouse in college basketball, but they had a pretty good season regardless. However, with four seniors leaving the team over the offseason, is Oregon doomed for another off year?
Oregon will be losing E.J. Singler, Carlos Emory, Arsalan Kazemi and Tony Woods. Those four players made up a good portion of the Ducks’ offense, so who knows if this team can compete for a Pac-12 title next season. Luckily, the team will be getting back Damyean Dotson, who was the second leading scorer on the team and was a freshman this year. Another freshman–soon to be sophomore–that had a pretty good season was Dominic Artis. Artis put up 8.5 points per game on the year, while Dotson averaged 11.4 points per game.
Dotson and Artis will both have to come up big in the 2013-14 college basketball season.
Before this season, Oregon did not make the NCAA Tournament since 2008. The Ducks have had some bad teams in between that season and this past season, including an eight win season in 2009.
Although the Ducks were a No. 12 seed in the dance, they deserved a much better seed, but still managed to make the Sweet 16 regardless. Don’t expect the same out of this team next year unless if Artis, Dotson and the rest of the Ducks pull off a surprise season.
This team will clearly still have some talent, but anytime a team loses four players, let alone four seniors, the following season is likely to be a down year. Just ask Kentucky and North Carolina, whom both lost most of their starting lineups this season and did significantly worse on the year.
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