Oregon looks to sweep its first two-game Big Ten road trip this season when the Ducks face Rutgers on Monday in Piscataway, N.J.
The Ducks (8-6, 1-2 Big Ten) opened their lone East Coast swing with a 64-54 win on Friday at Maryland without preseason all-Big Ten point guard Jackson Shelstad.
Shelstad, who averages a team-high 4.9 assists and 1.4 steals and ranks second with 15.6 points per game, has been battling a right hand injury for the second time this season. The first forced him to miss two exhibition games and the first game of the regular season. The Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard reported that Shelstad wore a brace on his hand while on the bench at Maryland.
Should Shelstad not be able to play Monday, Wei Lin is expected to start in his place again. The Chinese pro who joined the Ducks in the fall had eight points in a season-high 22 minutes at Maryland.
Oregon had success in a more half-court game without the speedy Shelstad.
“I thought we did some good things, controlled the tempo,” Ducks head coach Dana Altman said during his postgame radio interview. “Without Jackson, we didn’t really want to go up and down with them.”
The Scarlet Knights (7-7, 0-3) share the Big Ten basement with Maryland, Northwestern and Penn State. In Rutgers’ defense, it had the unenviable task of opening league play with No. 5 Purdue and No. 2 Michigan. That was followed by an 80-73 home loss to Ohio State on Friday. In that game, Rutgers blew a 15-point first-half lead.
“It’s always a game of runs,” Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell said. “If your defense is good enough, then those kind of leads can hold on. But it wasn’t at that level (Friday night) and we needed it to be.”
New Jersey Institute of Technology transfer Tariq Francis led Rutgers with 17 points. The 6-foot-1 guard has averaged 23.3 points and 2.7 steals over the last three games. Dylan Grant (14.4 ppg) leads the Scarlet Knights in scoring for the season.
–Field Level Media
