In his 34 years as a college basketball head coach Dana Altman has gained a well-deserved reputation as a guy who can unlock potential, solving mysteries while piecing a team together that gels at the right time.
Guard TJ Bamba is the Enigma Machine of the current Oregon roster, the code Altman has to crack for the Ducks to go deep in the NCAA Tournament.
Bamba came to Oregon in May 2024, a transfer from Villanova who spent three years previous at Washington State. He made the PAC-12 All-Conference Team in 2022-2023 while averaging 15.1 points a game, a career 38 percent shooter from the three-point arc.
He's been in a season-long slump with the Ducks, connecting just 38.6 percent from the floor, 25 percent on threes. It's gotten downright dismal at times: Bamba made just 5-13 shots against Indiana, 4-11 against Iowa, 4-12 against Michigan.
His defense hasn't suffered. At the end of the regular season Bamba was named to the All-Big-Ten Defensive Team along with center Nate Bittle.
Yet when he came to the Ducks, the thinking was he might blossom as an NBA draft pick. The 6-5 guard from the Bronx who finished his prep career at Abraham Lincoln High School in Denver was a four-star prospect in the portal with leaping ability and a long wingspan.
TJ Bamba has an NBA game… 6’5” physical force and a career 38% 3PT shooter. Watch for a major season at Oregon.🦆
— GREENLIGHT MEDIA (@greenlightbball) September 12, 2024
The Bronx, NY native can score at 3 levels and is a nightmare matchup for smaller players on the perimeter.🗽📈
Shooting splits last season- 43% FG | 37% 3PT | 82%… pic.twitter.com/d4GpN3bmSW
At Big Ten Media Day they asked Bamba why he came to Oregon. Coaching, he said. "The confidence our coach instills in his players. For my last and final year, I wanted to be coached by a culture of a coach of Coach Altman's caliber. I wanted to be pushed to an extreme that nobody ever has pushed me to. And I wanted to win. I wanted to showcase myself as a winner, as a true competitor, in somebody who's willing to do whatever for the team."
The effort has been there night in and night out, and Bamba has produced some notable highlights. Even in the shooting slump, he's the Ducks third leading scorer at 10.4 points per game. He leads Oregon in steals with 57, 10th all-time in school history for a single season. At the Big Ten Tournament he erupted for 17 points and five rebounds against Indiana, and in January against Washington he put up 21. At the Players Era Festival in November he tallied a season high 22 points in the tournament's championship game against San Diego State on 7-14 shooting, 4-6 from three-point range.
In the January win over Washington another of the Ducks' transfers, ex-Stanford forward Brandon Angel had a good game also with 15 points. Altman said, “TJ and Brandon gave us what I’d been hoping they’d give us all year. That’s the kind of players they are. Great to see them play that way.”
It's not a Rubik's Cube, but if Altman can coax that kind of basketball out of them in the NCAA Tournament, the Ducks could defy the KenPom ratings and exceed their seeding.