{"id":209026,"date":"2025-12-29T05:01:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T05:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/209026\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T05:01:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T05:01:13","slug":"bittles-big-night-sends-ducks-into-new-year-with-a-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/209026\/","title":{"rendered":"Bittle’s Big Night Sends Ducks Into New Year With a Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

EUGENE, Ore. \u2014 The ball drop on New Year’s Eve won’t happen for a couple more days, but plenty of buckets have been dropping for Nate Bittle<\/a> as that event approaches.<\/p>\n

Bittle closed out 2025 by scoring more than 25 points in consecutive games for the first time in his career, notching 26 on Sunday to lead the Oregon men’s basketball team in an 80-57 victory over Omaha at Matthew Knight Arena. That followed a 28-point effort for Bittle the last time out, in the Ducks’ loss to Gonzaga in Portland.<\/p>\n

“We’ve moved the ball pretty well the last couple games,” Bittle said. “It’s been in my hands a couple times in good spots for me to score, and I’m just taking advantage of it.”<\/p>\n

Takai Simpkins<\/a> added 15 points Sunday, Jackson Shelstad<\/a> scored 13 and Sean Stewart<\/a> had eight points plus a career-high 13 rebounds for the Ducks. Ege Demir<\/a> had five points with 10 rebounds and Bittle grabbed nine boards, helping Oregon to a 47-33 advantage on the glass.<\/p>\n

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Dezdrick Lindsay<\/a> added five points with five rebounds and also had seven assists with no turnovers. The UO men will ring in the new year on the road, as they resume Big Ten play at Maryland on Friday.<\/p>\n

“I’m excited to get back into conference play,” Bittle said. “I think we’ve got 11 Quad One games in conference play. So if we can get a good amount of those games, I think we’ll like where we are.”<\/p>\n

How It Happened: The Ducks jumped out to an early 18-5 lead. They scored nine straight on three-pointers by Lindsay, Bittle and Simpkins to go up 11-3, then scored another seven in a row to make it 18-5 with 13:06 left in the first half. At that point Omaha had just two field goals.<\/p>\n

“We really started well defensively,” UO coach Dana Altman<\/a> said. “Our activity was really good.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That lagged a bit in the middle of the first half, as Omaha put together a 12-2 run to get within 20-17. But the Ducks methodically pulled back out into a comfortable lead and were up double digits at halftime, 39-29, after a three-pointer at the buzzer from just inside halfcourt by Wei Lin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Early threes from Bittle, Simpkins and Shelstad put the UO men up 50-37 early in the second. Two straight buckets by Demir got the lead out to 59-41, and another three from Shelstad pushed the lead to 20 for the first time, at 73-53.<\/p>\n

The Ducks led by as much as 25 in the second half, and finished the game holding Omaha to 36.8 percent shooting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“We made a step,” Altman said. “We’re probably where we should have been at the end of November rather than the end of December \u2026 but we’ve got to get healthy if we’re going to make any progress.”<\/p>\n

Notable: Junior Kwame Evans Jr.<\/a> sat out the game with an ankle injury but could potentially play in his homecoming at Maryland on Friday, Altman said. \u2026 Injured wing Devon Pryor<\/a> suited up to participate in warmups but ultimately missed his fourth straight game. \u2026 Stewart’s previous career high in rebounds was 10, set last season. \u2026 Simpkins surpassed 1,000 career points during Sunday’s game.<\/p>\n

Up Next: The Ducks play at Maryland on Friday (4:30 p.m., Peacock).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EUGENE, Ore. \u2014 The ball drop on New Year’s Eve won’t happen for a couple more days, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-209026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}