Oregon Basketball: Chris Duarte is nation’s most underrated All-American

Chris Duarte was named to the AP’s All-American third team on Tuesday evening. It’s pretty clear the Oregon basketball star is severely underrated.

Just two years after being named an All-American at the junior college level and the 2019 NJCAA Player of the Year, Chris Duarte has earned impressive honors at the Division 1 level.

Duarte transferred in from Oregon before the 2019-20 season as the best JUCO prospect in the country and had an immediate impact for the Ducks. He was named honorable mention All-Pac-12 and also honorable mention All-Pac-12 Defensive team. He averaged 12.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.7 steals in his first year at the D1 level.

The native of the Dominican Republic only got better in his final season with the Ducks, averaging 16.4 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.9 steals and he shot 52 percent from the floor and 43 percent from 3-point range. He improved drastically in just about every category.

Not only was he a first-team All-Pac-12 performer, but he was also named to the AP’s All-American third team.

This comes as a bit of a surprise not because he doesn’t have the talent (he has plenty of that) but rather because he’s been overlooked all season. Ask anyone outside of the Pac-12 and they probably know very little about the senior guard. For an All-American, he’s very rarely talked about nor given the attention he deserves.

Duarte joins the likes of Davion Mitchell (Baylor), Quentin Grimes (Houston), Herb Jones (Alabama) and Cameron Krutwig (Illinois Chicago) on the third team. And, that’s right, he’s probably the least nationally recognized out of the bunch despite arguably being the best of the group.

He’s also only one of two Pac-12 players (joining Evan Mobley of USC) to make one of the three AP All-American teams and the reason Duarte doesn’t get the attention he deserves is probably because the conference hasn’t been great this year and national pundits don’t speak highly of the league. As a whole, the Pac-12 is always overlooked.

Still, this is a huge honor for Duarte and it might get some extra eyes on him for the NCAA Tournament as the Ducks gear up to face VCU on Saturday night in primetime.