Oregon Basketball: N’Faly Dante will be key to 2021-22 title run

Playing a good portion of the 2020-21 season without a true center playing key minutes, Oregon will have an entire offseason to figure out how to balance a roster with an embarrassment of riches at the position.

Nathan Bittle, a top-20 five-star recruit, is coming in and he’s the No. 2 center in the 2021 recruiting class and former four-star Franck Kepnang is back after joining the team mid-season.

People also forget that four-star center Isaac Johnson is also due to join the roster after a two-year mission following a commitment with the 2019 recruiting class. He was the No. 74 prospect in the 2019 class and the 6-11 big man will join the team this offseason.

After a year with no depth in the post, Oregon will almost have too much.

And that’s not even mentioning the biggest key to success of the group: N’Faly Dante.

N’Faly Dante is the key to a deep 2021-22 run

The former five-star and No. 14 recruit in the 2019 class was a nice addition and reclassified up from the 2020 cycle. He was immediately looked at as a top NBA prospect at center but played sparingly early on. He averaged just 13.6 minutes in which he scored 5.8 points and grabbed 2.8 rebounds per game as a true freshman.

As a sophomore, he was already seeing an increase in production at 8.2 points and 5.8 rebounds in a little over 17 minutes per game, but he tore his ACL just six games into the year.

Everyone found out in the Sweet 16 against USC that the absence of a guy like Dante was the difference between hanging with the Trojans and going home early.

Dante is the key to a potential 2021-22 national title run.

Not only does he bring size at 6-foot-11 and 230 pounds but he’s also the veteran of the group and he’s tough in the post. He doesn’t get pushed around and that’s exactly what these Ducks needed against Evan Mobley and USC in the Sweet 16. If he played, we may be looking at Oregon as an Elite Eight or even Final Four team.

With an offseason to rehab and rejoin the roster as a junior (or redshirt sophomore), Dante could be that guy who dominates in the post and provides a matchup nightmare for the rest of the Pac-12. He could be a 15-and-10 type of player who’s difficult to stop and plays lights-out defense every night.

Imagine him, Kepnang, Johnson and Bittle patrolling the post. No one would be scoring in the paint on these guys and trying to defend 6-11 after 6-11 big man in the post would be near-impossible.

Without Dante, there’s just a group of inexperienced and unproven guys but with him, he’s the leader of a potentially great group. When healthy, he’s a top NBA draft prospect and a potential superstar big man for the Ducks who is critical to a deep NCAA Tournament run in 2021-22.