Oregon 2026-27 Basketball Preview

One of the players I'd specifically hoped we'd target going into portal season, and probably the player I'm most excited about on this roster. Listed at 6-8/6-9 with a reported wingspan around 7-3. Build is closer to Draymond Green than a traditional five, long, mobile, athletic enough to play forward, but with the wingspan to defend centers at the college level. The kind of body and motor you build a team around.

Why his numbers don't tell the full story

At SDSU last season, the 2nd unit was arguably better than the 1st … Compton, Davis, and a couple of freshmen put up wildly better per-minute numbers than the starters … and the staff just never made the swap. Compton played about 15 minutes a night the whole year, which means his per-minute production is sky-high but his career start total sits at one. The hope is that he can keep up that per-minute production with a much bigger role at Oregon. There are real indications that he can, but no guarantees, and a fair share of foul trouble to navigate before we find out (more on that below).

The shot chart is hilarious

How elite is the rim finishing? 82% at the rim. #1 in all of college basketball among any player with at least 100 rim attempts. There is literally no one who had more rim attempts than Compton and also converted at a higher rate. Drop the gate to 50 rim attempts and he's #6. Out of 2,000 players. His FTR of 52.4 is reminiscent of Kwame Evans Jr.: same kind of constantly-drawing-fouls, downhill-pressure value player. Take Kwame's profile and replace the three-point shooting with elite rim finishing; that's roughly the comp.

Where his offense actually comes from

Hoop-Explorer's play-type frequencies show a player with zero perimeter game and elite efficiency on everything around the basket. The numbers are off the charts:

• Big Pick-and-Roll: 1.49 PPP, 98.7th percentile, used 6.8 times per 100 possessions (top decile of frequency). He's strictly the catch-and-finish roll man … not a ball-handler … but when he gets a shoulder past his man and rolls, he's essentially unguardable. Oregon has run high pick-and-roll as a featured action for years (the Couisnard / N'Faly Dante action is the recent template). Compton plays the Dante role with better finishing.
• Transition: 1.64 PPP, 98.9th percentile. He runs like a forward, beats his man down the floor almost every time, and dunks anything he can get a shoulder on. I cannot remember seeing a big who finishes in transition this often.
• Rebounding & scramble: 1.41 PPP, 84.9th percentile, and the frequency (3.1 per 100 possessions) is high too. He gets to scramble situations a ton because his offensive rebounding rate is high. When he gets one, he dunks it or finishes with feel.
• Post-up: 0.88 PPP, 67.9th percentile. Not what you call him for, but if the matchup's there he doesn't waste it.
• Pick & pop / high-low: Essentially zero. He doesn't shoot, so this isn't a tool yet.

The three bars worth staring at … Big Cut & Roll, Rebounding & Scramble, and Transition … are all ridiculously high in both efficiency and frequency. He finishes the pick-and-roll, he finishes second-chance offense, and he finishes in transition. That last one in particular is unusual at this volume for a center.

Lefty PnR note: when the screener and the ball-handler are opposite-handed, the action attacks both sides of the rim simultaneously, each player driving to their dominant hand. Compton being a lefty sets up best with right-handed lead guards, but most of Oregon's backcourt is also left-handed (Jasper Johnson and Fred Payne both shoot lefty). The opposite-hand pairings to watch are Compton + Jerry Easter and possibly Compton + Andrew Meadow; those are the only right-handed initiators on the roster who could run that action. Easter-Compton specifically is a really interesting PnR combination. Sneaky third option: Compton + Aristode. It might never happen since Aristode hasn't been a primary handler, but if his on-ball game expands at all, he's another righty who could run the lefty-PnR action with Compton.

The defensive fit is a perfect match

Defensively, Compton is everything you'd design in a lab for an Altman press-and-switch matchup zone five: undersized for the position but long, switchable, rim-protecting, and constantly active. Oregon has been here before with this exact archetype: Jordan Bell, Chris Boucher, Francis Okoro, LJ Figueroa. Undersized, long-armed, athletic guys playing the 5. Every time, it's worked.

Fit at Oregon

Drops in behind Stewart at the 5 to start. Compton and Stewart have overlapping skillsets … both elite finishers without individual offensive creation, both at-the-rim-only on offense … so they likely don't share the floor much. The pairings with real spacing are Compton next to Bol Bowen, or Compton at the 5 with Aristode at the 4.

How does a Dutch kid end up named Dwayne? You get there when his dad names you after Dwyane Wade. Aristode grew up in the Netherlands (Lelystad), spent his youth on the Dutch national team pipeline, and moved to the U.S. for prep school at Brewster Academy. By the end of his junior year he was a top-25 recruit nationally and committed to Arizona.

The senior-year wipeout

He missed his entire senior year of high school with a lower-leg injury (interestingly, the same kind of thing that sidelined Motiejus Krivas at Arizona). So his arrival in Tucson last fall was effectively cold: no senior tape, a year removed from competitive basketball, just a high-end recruiting profile and the Brewster body of work.

What he was at Arizona

Aristode played about 12 minutes a game as a freshman, a clear seventh-man role splitting wing minutes behind Ivan Kharchenkov. Arizona finished 36-3, was the #1 team in the country for a long stretch, and the on-off splits matter here:

His on-court role was narrow but extreme: floor spacer + offensive-rebound follow guy. Catch-and-shoot at high frequency, dunk anything that came at the rim, crash the offensive glass and finish above it. Honest read: this was the totality of his offensive contribution. Almost no shot creation. Almost no on-ball reps. Tommy Lloyd's offense at Arizona is a Mark-Few-Gonzaga descendant … double-post, ball-through-the-elbow stuff … so Aristode was deployed almost exclusively at the 3 even though his frame would work at the 4.

The traits

The athletic ability is breathtaking. He plays above the rim effortlessly. The shot has infinite range with a quick, relaxed stroke, feet set, easy release, doesn't need a ton of space or runway. The catch-and-shoot three is unequivocally there. The off-the-bounce version is rougher; the form falls apart a bit when he has to dribble into it. So today he's a real catch-and-shoot weapon, not yet a dribble-pull-up shooter. Body: 6-8, 215-220, stacked, built like he's been doing this since he was twelve.

The shot chart is exactly what you want to see

Look at the diet: heavy three-point volume from above-the-break and both wings, finishes at the rim, and almost nothing in the midrange. He shot 46% from three last year, which is unsustainable, but EvanMiya projects him at about 36% from three next year, which is perfectly fine. The touch is real; the volume is the swing factor. Free throws were 50%, but only on 20 attempts all season … about once every three games … so that number isn't his actual ability. It's a non-sample.

Where his offense actually came from

• Perimeter Sniper: 1.40 PPP, 99.3rd percentile, 5.9 per 100. When you kicked it to him on the wing, you got 1.40 points every time. Astronomical numbers, not sustainable at higher usage, but the form and the touch are absolutely real.
• PnR Passer: 1.04 PPP, 62.9th percentile, 2.1 per 100. The interesting bar. Both the frequency and efficiency are unexpected from a 6-8 wing. There's something there as a connector in PnR, especially with a real roller like Compton or Stewart.
• Transition: 1.44 PPP, 88.3rd percentile. Runs the floor like a forward, finishes above the rim.
• Rim Attack: 0.48 PPP, 1.6th percentile, 1.4 per 100. This is the bar that breaks the modern-shot-chart narrative, given how athletic he is, you'd expect more, and better. Either the role didn't ask for it or his self-creation off the bounce isn't there yet.
• Mid-Range / Dribble Jumper: Basically zero. Took maybe one dribble jumper all year (and made it). No mid-range game at all.
• Big Cut & Roll, Hits Cutter, Inside Out, Pick & Pop, High-Low: Zero possessions.

The connector role and the scaling question

Aristode's usage at Arizona was 12%, the 3rd percentile. He floated around the offense, did almost only good things, and almost never did bad things. The ball didn't stop with him; he kept it moving.

• Effective FG%: 30th-highest in all of college basketball, on this usage. There's no way that holds if usage climbs to 20-25%.
• Offensive Rating: 50th-highest in college basketball, same caveat.
• 3PR: 67% of his shots were threes. That diet is the floor of the modern game.

The honest tension: every rate stat he posted is genuinely elite, and every rate stat is also dependent on him being a connector piece between Jaden Bradley, Motiejus Krivas, and the Arizona starting unit. Going from a 7th-man kick-out target on a 36-3 team to a featured rotation piece on a top-25 team is a real role change, and we don't have college tape of him in that bigger role.

The eye test and the counting stats don't quite match

The film shows an obviously dominant defensive player and a high-end athlete. The on-off numbers back it up; team is better with him on the floor on both ends. But the traditional rate stats don't pop the way you'd expect from a guy who's clearly killing people on tape:

• ORB%: 5.5, modest for a 6-8 vertical athlete
• DRB%: 8.4, low
• Blk%: 0.7, very low for the frame
• Stl%: 2.0, fine, not high

So the rate stats lie a little. He's a better player than the box score suggests, and the team-impact numbers reinforce that. But the honest read: you'd like to see him be more aggressive at attacking those counting stats: more boards, more steals, more blocks. It's a moderate concern that those numbers haven't shown up yet, and an open question whether they ever will.

Fit at Oregon

The initial pitch out of the staff is that he backs up Sean Stewart at the 4 to start the season. It would surprise exactly no one if he ends up in the starting lineup before long, particularly if the on-ball game expands at all. The Kwame-Evans-style role at the 4 (stretch four next to Compton or Stewart, switch everything, attack closeouts) is the obvious fit, and slotting him up to the 3 in bigger lineups is also viable.

Two things to remember when calibrating expectations:

1. You never know what happens when you ask a passive freshman to run a bigger role. The numbers might not just scale; they might change shape. He's been so passive at Arizona that there's no real college tape of him in a featured spot. The ramp could be uneven.
2. He doesn't have to develop much more to be a real player. If he just does at Oregon what he did at Arizona … same role, same impact … over twice the minutes, he projects as a 3-and-D NBA wing on athletic profile alone. The upside, if the creation game scales, is meaningfully higher.

This is the highest NBA upside Oregon has had on the roster in a long time. High-floor, high-ceiling addition.

McDonald's All-American, McDonald's All-American Game dunk champion, and the only returner on this roster. Stewart's the senior voice in the locker room and the most explosive vertical athlete on the team.

The path here

Three schools in three years: Duke (FR), Ohio State (SO), Oregon (JR). At Duke he barely played. At Ohio State he started all 30 games at center despite being 6-8, sharing a frontcourt rotation with fellow McDonald's All-American Aaron Bradshaw. Stewart was clearly the better of the two and a real defensive presence in the middle for OSU. Whatever Bradshaw was supposed to be, Stewart actually was.

Why his Oregon year didn't meet expectations

Stewart's projection coming into 25-26 was significant; the models loved him; we were excited. He didn't hit those numbers, and the cleanest explanation is positional misuse. Oregon's wing depth collapsed last year … especially after Jackson Shelstad got hurt … and the only way to get the team's best players on the floor was to slide Stewart down to the 3. That doesn't work, because he can't shoot. The Stewart-Evans-Bittle frontline (with Stewart at the 3) got annihilated in conference play. He was on the floor, just out of position.

The vertical athleticism is unique on this team

You have to go back to Jordan Bell or Kenny Wooten to find an Oregon player with this kind of pure vertical pop. Sadly he doesn't have the length or defensive timing of those two, but he's an explosive runner, beats his check down the floor consistently, and switches onto guards without panic. That last piece … being able to roll out a starting five where any defender can be on a point guard … is a real advantage and opens up a lot of options for Altman defensively.

The shot chart

The rim cluster is fantastic, 67% at the rim, on real volume, with a 4.6% block rate on the other end. That's the player. The problem is the rest of the chart. He has no business shooting from anywhere outside the painted area, and yet there are scattered midrange and elbow attempts everywhere. He needs to be dunking the ball or passing it. Anything between the restricted area and the three-point line is a possession-killer.

Where his offense came from

It is not a mystery. Almost every bar on this chart that involves a real decision comes out red. He's not a particularly good half-court offensive player, not as a roll man, not on post-ups, not on high-low entries. The one bright spot is transition. The biggest takeaway is the huge bar at High-Low: that was Stewart, classified as a big but slid down to the 3, throwing the ball to Bittle and Evans in the post. The three of them were essentially the entire offense once Shelstad went down, so they ended up on the floor together a lot. The volume was forced by lineup necessity. The efficiency was 30th percentile.

The bar-by-bar:

• Post-Up: 0.74 PPP, 28.0th percentile, 5.1 per 100. The most-used play type. Oregon ran offense to him on the block. The numbers say don't.
• Big Cut & Roll (roll man): 1.07 PPP, 29.5th percentile, 3.6 per 100. Mid-volume, bottom-third efficiency; he's not making things hard on a defense as a roller.
• High-Low: 0.98 PPP, 30.0th percentile, 2.1 per 100. The forced-volume bar, high frequency for a player at this position, low efficiency. This is the "Stewart at the 3 throwing to Bittle/Evans" minutes.
• Inside-Out: 0.95 PPP, 46.4th percentile, 2.9 per 100. Middling. Better in his Ohio State year, but at Oregon it was only OK.
• Reb. & Scramble: 1.19 PPP, 49.0th percentile, 2.7 per 100. Live-ball plays off offensive boards; this is where he should be living.
• Transition: 1.27 PPP, 60.8th percentile, 1.9 per 100. Beats his check down the floor. This is real.
• Hits Cutter: 1.07 PPP, 62.5th percentile, 1.1 per 100. Decent. Reading the floor and finding cutters works.
• Rim Attack (self-created): 0.77 PPP, 31.0th percentile, 1.0 per 100. He's not getting his own at the rim; he gets his rim shots off rolls and rebounds, not on his own.

The shape: anything where Stewart is the offensive engine (post, roll, high-low entry, self-created rim) comes out below the 35th percentile. Anything where he's a finisher off other people's work (transition, cutter touches, scramble) is around or above league average. Take the ball out of his hands; let him run the floor and crash the glass; the offense lives somewhere else.

The rebounding is special

This is where he separates from almost every other big in the country. Offensive rebound rate of 10.5%; that is unbelievably good. Defensive rebound rate of 26% is tied for around the 30th-highest in all of college basketball. He rebounds like a demon, on both ends, and that has enormous value.

The usage numbers don't fit the skill set

Layering all of last year's usage data:

• Usage 18%, far too high for what he's good at. With this team's offensive options, he should be in the 12-14% range as a pure finisher.
• Turnover rate 18%, really high. Direct consequence of asking him to handle and pass and post.
• Assist rate 6%, fine for a big. He's not a creator, but he's not a black hole either.
• Steal rate 2.2%, good for a 6-9 frontcourt player.

Fit at Oregon

The simplest path to a much better Stewart year: play him exclusively at the 4 and the 5. Don't ask him to space the floor. Don't run sets through him. Let him be a focal point of the defense and a focal point of the dunking, and let the offense come from the seven other guys who can shoot. With Compton, Bol Bowen, and Aristode all in the frontcourt rotation, Oregon shouldn't have last year's positional emergencies forcing him out of position.

If he's used correctly, expect him to be substantially better than he was last year. The talent and the impact at his real position both check out. The only question is whether the team's lineup needs let him stay there.

A long, lefty wing who caught NBA scouts' attention a couple of games into his freshman year. He's around 6-6 and just moves different, the kind of fluid mover you expect from a pro, not a kid playing his first college season. His tape jumped off the screen.

The story so far

After Riley's freshman year, the world came after him in the portal. Tons of high-major programs … including Oregon … got involved. For unclear reasons, he went back to San Francisco for his sophomore year, and the expectation around college basketball was that USF would run their offense through him: develop the creation, develop the passing, build the kind of NBA tape he needed to show to take a real leap.

That's not what happened. USF instead built their offense around Robbie Beasley (now at Washington) and David Fuchs … both with below-average athleticism … and Riley got slotted into a catch-and-shoot role on the wing. Midrange jumpers, perimeter sniping, taking what others created off the dribble. The freshman-to-sophomore leap that scouts were waiting for didn't happen. He didn't play poorly … he started every game both years (65 starts in 65 games) and was steady production … but his star has fallen substantially from where it was a year ago.

Multiple evaluators have framed Oregon's pursuit as an exceptional bounce-back / buy-low opportunity: a player whose stock dropped through no fault of his own, slotted now into a system that should let his actual game come back out.

Why Oregon went after him so hard

Riley was Oregon's first portal target out of the gate, not on a list, but the lead move. The offer was big enough to blow past everybody, including Louisville, who's been spending on every available portal name they like. The fact that Oregon moved that fast and that aggressively says two things:

1. The staff still believes in the freshman-year ceiling, the version that had every NBA scout circling.
2. They're going to use him completely differently than USF did. Catch-and-shoot wing isn't the role; that's not what the NBA needs to see, and it's not what gets the next leap. Oregon is selling him on creation reps: off the bounce, getting his own looks, generating shots for teammates. The exact film he needs to put on tape.

He can shoot from everywhere

Basketball is a relatively solved game; the modern recipe is shoot threes or shoot at the rim, and that's what Riley's freshman shot chart looked like. As a sophomore he took a lot more midrange. He made them at a fine clip, but those are inherently low-efficiency shots and you'd rather see fewer of them in his mix. Where he is unambiguously good: he can shoot from everywhere.

• 3PT: 37%, real and useable
• 2-pt midrange: 48%, high efficiency given the shot type
• At the rim: 60%, solid for a wing
• FT: 71%, fine but not the indicator of a future 40%+ shooter

Mechanically, the shot looks great: lefty with a quick trigger, a high release point, real verticality. Combine that with 6-6 and plus athleticism and he can get it off over almost anyone. That's exactly the physical profile USF leaned into to use him as a perimeter sniper; physically, the role made sense. It just wasn't the ceiling. Worth noting: he and Jasper Johnson are physically very similar players. Oregon got two of this archetype.

Good at everything. Just didn't do enough of it. Criminally low usage.

• Rim Attack: 0.95 PPP, 77.7th percentile, but only 4.6 per 100. He's good when he goes; he just didn't go very often.
• Attack & Kick: 1.03 PPP, 73rd percentile, same story, low frequency.
• Mid-Range: 0.94 PPP, 89th percentile and 2.6 per 100. The most-used action in his game, and an inherently low-efficiency shot type. Wish there were less of this.
• Reb. & Scramble: 1.50 PPP, 91.6th percentile. Elite when he gets one. 5% offensive rebounding rate is excellent for a guard.
• Big Cut & Roll, Post-Up, Inside Out, Pick & Pop, High-Low: Zero possessions. He never set a screen. Worth experimenting with at Oregon; he's got the size and the touch.
• Transition: 1.21 PPP, 46.6th percentile. Lower than you'd expect for a long, athletic wing, room to grow here.

The thing that jumps out: most of these bars are 40th-60th percentile frequency. For a player of Riley's caliber on a mid-major roster, those bars should be through the roof. USF just didn't run anything through him.

Ball security and assist trajectory

Two stats that stand out positively and one that doesn't:

• Turnover rate: 9%. Roughly 120th in all of college basketball among ranked players. He simply does not turn the ball over.
• Assist rate climbed slightly: 6% as a freshman to 8% as a sophomore. Pre-season scouting reports wanted that number to jump into the 20s. It didn't, not because he can't pass, but because USF didn't run actions through him.
• Offensive rebounding 5%: elite for a guard, fine for a forward.

The downside risk

It's also perfectly possible the freshman-to-sophomore jump never came because Riley just isn't that type of player, that he flashes but doesn't have the stuff to expand those flashes into regular, scaled contributions. Lots of guys flash and don't make it. He could end up a wallflower-type contributor: good, useful, but not the all-conference, build-your-team-around, NBA-track talent that the freshman tape suggested.

My read leans the other way: he was meaningfully more efficient than either Beasley or Fuchs on the actions USF preferred (pick-and-roll with the point, dumps to the post), and his individual production on the things he did do (rim attack, attack-and-kick, perimeter shooting) all sat in the 70th-90th percentile. That doesn't read as a guy without the stuff; that reads as a guy whose strengths didn't fit USF's preferred initiation routes.

But the downside is real. Oregon has made a substantial bet that the freshman ceiling is the real player. Altman has historically been good at identifying which mid-major-buried wings have the next-level gear, but no portal evaluation is ever a sure thing.

Fit at Oregon

Likely starts at the wing in the opening five (Payne / Riley / Meadow / Bol Bowen / Stewart). The role we sold him on, and the role he needs for his own NBA case, is bigger than the catch-and-shoot version USF used: more on-ball reps, more pick-and-roll initiation, more secondary creation. If that bet pays off, Riley is a top-3 player on this roster and quietly the most important non-Compton storyline of the season. If it doesn't, he's still a high-end wing starter on a deep team, a reasonable floor.

Two open questions worth watching

• Can he play the 2 instead of the 3? He played mostly the 3 at USF. For his NBA case it would help to log meaningful reps as a 2-guard. If he can switch up there and be effective as a creator, his length defensively and on the boards becomes an absolute superpower, a 6-6 lefty with plus verticality at the off-guard spot is a real defensive weapon.
• Can he be a secondary ball-handler? When Payne is on the floor, can Riley handle some of the “break the press, get into offense” work himself? He doesn't have to do it all the time, but if Oregon doesn't have to play two true ball-handlers at all times, the lineup combinations open up dramatically.

The defensive fit is obvious. Oregon is set up to play heavy trap and heavy matchup zone this year. Altman went out and signed wings 6-5 to 6-9 who can switch and shoot; Riley is the prototype. The lefty length, the athleticism, the engagement on the offensive boards; all of it shows up on defense in that scheme too.

For the love of god, can we get this kid in the weight room? Get him keys to the building, have him make friends with Nasir Wyatt, have him eat what Nasir eats and lift what Nasir lifts. He needs strength in the worst way; he might be the skinniest kid I've ever seen in major college basketball. Genuinely sad story, and I'm rooting hard for the rebound.

The path here

Local Lexington kid who dreamed of playing for Kentucky, played for Kentucky, and got chewed up and spit out. He wasn't what they were hoping he was going to be, got put in a position to fail, did fail, and got essentially run out of his hometown. That is a tragic college basketball story regardless of how the basketball part shakes out, and the basketball part on the front end was very, very promising.

All through the AAU and EYBL circuit it was obvious: 6-5, long, lefty, combo guard who can really, really shoot. He played really well in the junior circuit, the kind of kid who would go catch a heater and drop a stack of points on you in a hurry. Quick trigger, great stroke. He might be the best shooter on this Oregon team. Meadow's right there with him, but there's a real chance Jasper is the best shooter on the roster.

Why his Kentucky year went sideways

Two things went wrong, layered on top of each other.

First, Overtime Elite. After EYBL his junior year, he went to OTE for his senior year of high school. They don't really run offense there. They claim it's "individual skill development," but in practice it's everyone trying to be James Harden: iso, dribble moves, shake-and-bake, hunt your own shot. You could see it in Jasper's senior tape. He spent a year being trained into the wrong player. The North Star … not the ceiling, the North Star … should be somewhere between Rip Hamilton and Klay Thompson: sharp off screens, around corners, catching with his feet set, firing. Not James Harden. OTE pointed him at the wrong model.

Second, the Jaland Lowe injury. Lowe (transfer in from Pitt) dislocated his shoulder in the Blue-White game, kept playing through it, and ultimately had to shut it down nine games in. Kentucky had no other real point guards. So they moved Jasper up to be the primary ball-handler behind Denzel Aberdeen (since transferred back to Florida). It went badly. His handle is too loose to be a primary, and he is not strong enough; the SEC absolutely ate him alive on ball. He'd get bumped off his spot, lose confidence, end up taking bad shots out of busted possessions. By the end of the year he had worked his way out of the rotation and only played sparingly in the NCAA tournament.

The shot chart

Two things to like immediately. One: the midrange is largely empty; he isn't wasting possessions on inefficient pull-ups, the shot diet is correct. Two: look at the depth on some of those three-point attempts. There are makes well beyond the line … logo-range stuff … with at least a couple of green hexes that deep, meaning he hit one or two of them. That is genuinely insane range for a 6-5 sophomore. He shot 34% from three on real volume and 88% from the line. The free throw number is the tell; this guy can really, really shoot. The interior is also encouraging: he isn't afraid to drive the ball, and when he gets all the way to the rim he finishes at a real rate.

Where his offense came from

This is one of the cleanest "wrong role" charts you'll see all year. Every play type that uses him as an off-ball shooter … Perimeter Sniper, Dribble Jumper, Hits Cutter, even Mid-Range … is in the high-50s to high-70s percentile in efficiency on real volume. Every play type that uses him as a ball-handler falls off a cliff.

The bar-by-bar:

• Perimeter Sniper: 1.03 PPP, 66.6th percentile, 6.0 per 100. Top-decile frequency, top-third efficiency. This is the player.
• Hits Cutter: 1.13 PPP, 79.5th percentile, 1.9 per 100. When he passes on the move, it works.
• Dribble Jumper: 0.99 PPP, 73.3rd percentile, 2.2 per 100. Pull-ups in rhythm, another green bar.
• Mid-Range: 0.78 PPP, 51.1st percentile, 2.4 per 100. Mid-pack on low volume. Not a problem.
• Rim Attack: 0.81 PPP, 41.9th percentile, 4.6 per 100. Decent volume, slightly below average efficiency. Not bad, not great.
• PnR Passer: 0.93 PPP, 26.2nd percentile, 4.5 per 100 (94th percentile in frequency). Kentucky ran him as a primary pick-and-roll initiator at a top-decile rate, and he delivered in the bottom quartile of efficiency. Over and over and over. Pope didn't seem to have another option, so the same broken action got run on loop.
• Transition: 1.14 PPP, 32.0th percentile, 4.7 per 100. High volume, mid-pack efficiency. He's fast enough to get out, but he isn't an explosive vertical athlete and he isn't strong; in transition he's not breaking the rim. He's a skill-level finisher in transition, not an athlete one.
• Reb. & Scramble: 0.79 PPP, 6.3rd percentile, 1.5 per 100. Rock bottom. The strength piece shows up here too; live-ball scrambles are a body-against-body event, and he loses every one of them.

Translation: Kentucky's two highest-frequency play types for him were PnR Passer (94th percentile in frequency, 26th in efficiency) and Transition (high volume, 32nd in efficiency), both ball-in-his-hands actions, both red. The high-skill-level off-ball stuff he's actually good at also got volume, but a third-to-half of his usage was being spent on the wrong actions.

The rate stats tell the same story

• Three-point rate 60%, great. Literally what he should be doing. Shoots threes 60% of the time he shoots.
• Assist rate 23%, legitimately strong on the surface, but probably not sustainable in his real role at Oregon, because…
• Turnover rate 22%, an abomination. Direct consequence of being asked to handle. Got his pocket picked constantly. The OTE bag does not work in the SEC.
• Free throw rate 16%; he almost never went to the line. Shies away from contact, and SEC defenders punished him every time he tried.

Off-ball, in a Klay/Rip role, that 22% turnover number drops by half almost mechanically; you can't lose the ball if you're not handling it. The 23% assist rate also won't be 23% anymore, but that's fine; we have other initiators. What stays is the shooting, the cutting reads, and the defense.

The Easter swap

This one is going to come back up when we get to Jerry Easter, but it's the central thesis on both players. Kentucky tried to make a shooter into a primary ball-handler. USC tried to make a primary ball-handler into a floor-spacing wing. If you flipped them … Easter into Jasper's Kentucky role, Jasper into Easter's USC role … you have a very different story for both kids. Oregon's job is to recognize that and put each of them in the role the other one was failing in.

The downside case

That whole writeup … the shot chart, the play types, the rate stats, the Easter swap … is the optimistic read. It assumes the bad numbers (the 22% turnover rate, the 16% free throw rate, the 6th-percentile rebound-and-scramble efficiency) are role-dependent. Take him off the ball, give him the right job, and they go away.

The downside read is that they don't go away because they're not about role. They're who he is. He has now put up a full year of those numbers. That is not a five-game slump. The pessimistic version is: his handle is just genuinely loose, he genuinely shies from contact, he is genuinely too small to play through bodies, and changing the role doesn't change any of that. The other piece of the pessimistic version is psychological, that he refuses to embrace the catch-and-shoot role and insists on being the dribble-into-a-step-back player OTE trained him to be. If that's the version that shows up at Oregon, then he's a one-dimensional shooter with bad turnover and rebound habits playing through a body the Big Ten can move around, and he isn't a high-leverage piece on this roster.

I want to believe this is role-dependent. I think it probably is. But it's a real risk and it's worth saying out loud.

Fit at Oregon

For the love of god, don't have him play point guard. The fit here is straightforward: catch-and-shoot 2-guard, off-ball movement off Compton/Stewart screens, attacking closeouts, defending the opposing 2 in Altman's matchup zone. If we use him correctly … and if the strength piece comes along … the same kid who was a top-25 national recruit a year ago is suddenly a real high-leverage shooter on a deep roster. The ceiling is real, the path is obvious, and the bet is on his head and his body, not his game.

This is the third or fourth player on this list who falls into the same bucket: everybody thought he was going to be a lot more last year, and it didn't happen. Aristode underperformed in volume. Riley underperformed his role. Stewart underperformed because of position. Bol Bowen underperformed at Alabama. Easter underperformed at USC. Jasper underperformed at Kentucky. The whole roster construction is built around the idea that we can put each of these guys in a role that lets the version we believe in actually show up. Jasper's the most obvious of the group. Rooting hard for the kid.

Honest framing up front: I wasn't a huge fan of going after him. He looks like Chris Boucher … 6-10, super long, runs the floor, hits threes, blocks shots … but in the stats that actually matter he's roughly half of a Boucher. Tantalizing version of an archetype that's never quite become the archetype.

The path here

No. 22 in 247Sports' class of 2023 (No. 73 Composite). Two years at Florida State, okay as a freshman, then the breakout sophomore year that made him a coveted portal piece: 41.4% from three on 70 attempts, 78% FT, 7.1% block rate. Alabama scooped him out of the portal and immediately changed the role: a low-usage (14.9%) pick-and-pop big: set the screen, pop to the arc, shoot if it comes. The high-leverage piece they thought they got, deployed in a low-leverage way.

The arc inside that Alabama year is the part that matters. He came out of the gate firing: 17 and 9 vs St. John's at MSG in game 2, 12 points on 5-of-6 in the second half vs Maryland in the Players Era Festival a few weeks later. Then SEC play started and he fell off a cliff. He played through an undisclosed hamstring injury most of conference play, his minutes got restricted, the Alabama fanbase soured. He tore up a Final-Four-caliber St. John's defense in November; he's capable of producing against high-major bodies. Whatever happened in January and February isn't the ceiling.

I'd also say I would have preferred those funds had gone toward the guard problem we had at the time. We're cleaner there now. But that's the context of the get.

The shot chart

The 30.2% from three last year is misleading. 79.6% from the FT line tells you he's a real shooter; the FSU sophomore year (41.4% on volume) tells you the same thing. Honest projection on the three is high-30s. He also finished 70% at the rim on real volume at Alabama, driving a 61.5% two-point clip; the interior finishing was good last year too.

Where his offense came from

Pick-and-pop dominates: 3.9 per 100, 47.2nd percentile efficiency. The rest of the chart is tiny volume but elite where it shows up:

• Pick & Pop: 0.95 PPP, 47.2nd percentile, 3.9 per 100. The dominant role.
• Big Cut & Roll: 1.52 PPP, 99.3rd percentile, 1.3 per 100. When they let him roll instead of pop, it worked.
• Post-Up: 1.10 PPP, 98.4th percentile, 2.2 per 100. Real post threat that wasn't asked to be.
• Inside-Out / High-Low: 83.0 / 88.3rd percentile efficiency on small volume.
• Reb. & Scramble / Transition: 67.7 / 45.3rd percentile, 1.7 / 2.7 per 100.

The takeaway: he was good at things Alabama almost never let him do. Small samples come with the caveat that 1.3 Big Cut & Roll possessions per 100 doesn't extrapolate cleanly to a featured role, but the efficiency floor on diversified reps suggests Oregon can broaden his offensive job profitably.

The three-year trajectory

• Block rate: 5.0% → 7.1% → 4.8%. FSU sophomore is the high-water mark.
• Three-point rate: 21.2% → 41.4% → 30.2%. Sophomore year is the real shooter signal.
• Turnover rate: 19.8% → 20.5% → 12.1%. Role-driven, not improvement; Alabama just took the ball out of his hands.
• Assist rate: always low (4.1 / 6.2 / 3.8). Don't run offense through him.

The volume falls short of the frame

For a 6-10 with this length, the rates are quietly underwhelming. 6.0% ORB, 15.5% DRB, 4.8% Blk at Alabama. Against Stewart (10.5 / 26.0 / 4.6) he's at roughly 60% of the rebounding rates on a 6-9 frame. Against Boucher's career at Oregon (11.8 / 11.0 / 20.3 Blk/ORB/DRB), he's at 40% / 55% / 75%. You watch him for five seconds and expect more than you get. That's probably why the Alabama fanbase soured by year's end.

Fit at Oregon

Opens the year as a starter; the shot at the 4 unlocks Stewart at the 5, and the high-major reps matter early. The expectation is that Compton or Aristode takes a run at his minutes by midseason and probably gets the bulk of them. The hope is he holds the job: that the hamstring is the explanation, the FSU sophomore shooter is the real one, and he's a starting-level stretch 4 for a full year. The fallback … really good backup big on a deep frontcourt … is still a high-value role.

I read another reviewer make the case that there were games last year where Boston College might not have scored at all without Fred Payne, and I think they're right. BC shot 29.4% from three for the season … 357th in D1, quite literally the worst shooting team in major college basketball … with no real interior scoring or post game either. They still won four ACC games. That should be impossible, and a lot of how it wasn't is Fred Payne.

The Oregon comp

When I watch him, the first guy I think of is De'Vion Harmon. He moves like Harmon, plays like Harmon, has the same heft and length on a 6-1/6-2 frame. The stat line lands closer to Keeshawn Barthelemy. So somewhere between those two: not the team's number-one option, but a steady, good scoring guard who can go get his own shot, hit big shots, and really shoot, and on the Harmon side of the comp, a plus defender, not a hole.

The path here

Five games into his freshman year at BC, Payne went up for a rebound against Central Connecticut and came down on his right leg wrong: torn knee ligaments and a torn hamstring. Redshirted the rest of 23-24. Came back as a bench piece in 24-25 still working his way back. Then this past season, with BC expecting him to be the second option behind their main guy, he just took over, clear number-one option from early in the year. Carried the load. Grambling, Louisiana kid; reads as a real team leader.

The shot chart

The chart's all over the place. He shot 55% at the rim last year (worse in prior years), and FTR is only 17%; he doesn't barrel into contact, very Barthelemy. He'd rather pull up for a midrange floater or a little pop before he gets all the way home, which is exactly why the inside-the-lane cluster looks like it does.

Fun aside: Payne is a lefty, but watch his floater. He shoots almost all of his floaters in the lane right-handed. Doesn't matter the angle. From ten feet in, he prefers the right hand. You won't notice it until you remember he's left-handed and realize he just shot one with the wrong hand.

Where his offense came from, and the grain of salt

Reading the chart: every visible bar is shots/possessions per 100 team possessions while he's on the floor. Sum the visible volume and Payne is involved in roughly a third of every BC possession. That's a giant usage signal. When he was on the court, the offense ran through him; period.

Watching BC games felt like early-2000s Sixers basketball: dump it to Payne with no time left, go be Allen Iverson, rescue the possession. With that context, "50th percentile efficiency" on most of the chart isn't a knock; making something out of nothing 50% of the time on a team with no shooting and no inside game is good. The percentages should come up meaningfully when there's actually offense around him.

• Attack & Kick: 0.84 PPP, 7.3rd percentile, 4.3 per 100. The dark-red bar that jumps off the chart. This isn't a Payne problem; it's a teammates problem. When the rest of your team shoots 27% from three, kicking out can't return points.
• Mid-Range: 0.89 PPP, 80.5th percentile, 2.7 per 100. The most efficient bar on the chart. The shot type itself is inherently low-EV, so 80th percentile here is impressive.
• Perimeter Cut: 1.21 PPP, 57.6th percentile, 0.7 per 100. Low volume, decent.
• Transition: 1.22 PPP, 49.3rd percentile, 5.7 per 100. Big volume, mid-pack efficiency.
• Rim Attack: 0.86 PPP, 53.9th percentile, 6.2 per 100. Decent self-creation at the rim despite the contact aversion.
• Perimeter Sniper / PnR Passer / Hits Cutter: 49 / 48 / 51st percentile efficiency. Mid-pack across the board. Workmanlike.
• Reb. & Scramble: 0.84 PPP, 8.2nd percentile, 1.7 per 100. Body-against-body events; he loses these. Same theme as the FTR.

The rate stats:

• 3PT: 31.5% on 213 attempts. Career FT 82% (88% in 24-25, 77% in 25-26). Honest projection in a real offense: 37-39%.
• FTR 17%: very low. Allergic to the rim, in the Jackson Shelstad family.
• USG 24.7% with TO% 10: elite ball security on a heavy primary load. You can't get the ball off him. The only other player on this roster with comparable ball security is Tyrone Riley at 9%, and Riley wasn't being asked to be the lead initiator. Payne was. A 10% TO rate on a 24.7% usage as a primary handler is a genuine plus-tier trait; it's a steady-contributor floor under everything else.
• AST% 18%: not what you look for in a true PG; he was really a combo two for BC. The passing IQ is there to handle a primary role at Oregon, but that number is the call to keep him as a creator-scorer rather than a pure floor general.

Defense is real

Boston College was actually a good defensive team last year (4 ACC wins on offense alone shouldn't have been possible, and most of how it was possible is that the defense kept them in games). Payne was a meaningful part of that despite carrying the offensive load. Strong, sturdy, real lateral feet, plus length for the position. This isn't a player Oregon has to hide on defense.

Fit at Oregon: floor, ceiling, and what to watch

Opening-day starting lead guard, and given the lack of ball-handling depth behind him, he's going to be on the floor a lot. The job: get the team into offense, hit shots when defenses help off, defend without giving anything back.

The downside: he keeps hunting bad shots even when he doesn't have to; the BC habits stick, and he plays inefficiently in a context that doesn't require it. With limited backup at the position, those minutes are hard to absorb. Real risk.

The ceiling: he recognizes how much more talent he has around him than he did at BC and goes on a real shot diet. In that version, his percentages jump, the AST% comes up with real shooters to find, and he becomes the team's third, fourth, or fifth best player. If you're taking bets on the team's leading scorer next year, he's a great one. The 25-26 minutes load + 26-27 talent around him + a shot diet adjustment = a really useful guard. That's the bet.

First, the elephant in the room

He used to look so great. A genuine icon. The look you build entire marketing campaigns around, the kind of look that gets you remembered forever, beloved by an entire community for decades after you're gone.

And now he looks like a JAG who drove his Jeep Wrangler to practice and popped out with a bag of Chipotle or something.

Andrew, we could've had it all… rolling in the deep. You had my heart inside of your hands, and you played it to the beat.

The models don't all line up on him

There's a moderate spread on Meadow's projection. EvanMiya runs a little low; a few other rate-stat services are similar. Bart Torvik, by contrast, has him as the highest-PORPAG returning player on this roster, 3.14 last year, top-of-the-team. The spread isn't enormous and it's not like we don't know what we're getting: Meadow has the most production of anyone on this roster, and it's all efficient. The disagreement is about what level of player that production translates to in the Big Ten and whether his defense can keep him on the floor, not about whether the production is real.

Oregon went after him with intent

It's worth saying out loud: Oregon came out fast on Meadow. Same kind of intent as the early offers to Riley and Compton, foundational-piece intent, not let's-fill-out-the-bench intent. At the time it looked a little surprising, kind of a "stash a quality body" move. With the benefit of hindsight and looking at how the rest of the roster fits, I suspect he may start for us.

The skill set

He's 6-7, bigger than he looks, with real positional flexibility, 3 or 4 by default, can slide up to the 2 in the right lineup. The offense is the headline:

• 3PT: 38.7% on 106 attempts. Real shooter on real volume.
• 2P: 61.3%. Finishes at the rim and doesn't waste possessions.
• FTR 43.6%: takes the ball hard at the paint and gets to the line all the time.
• TS 61.4% on 17.4% USG: efficient from everywhere: threes, finishes, free throws.
• TO% 10: doesn't lose the ball. Same quiet ball-security tier as Payne.

This is a third-best player on a bubble Boise State team in one of the better mid-majors. He'd start on a tournament team last year, not just start, be a real piece of one. 67 career starts, substantial mileage, super dependable.

The shot chart

The diet is right. Three-point volume from everywhere along the arc, real green at the rim, the midrange is mostly empty. 68% at the rim, 61% on twos, 39% on threes on real volume, an extremely modern, extremely efficient shot profile. Worth noting too: the range extends comfortably well out into NBA distance; there are makes a step or two beyond the college arc on the chart.

The one number that will freak people out is the 65% from the line last year, way out of step with everything else here. The year before that he shot 84%. I'm calling the 65% an aberration. The shot is real, the FT history says it's real, and (this is just a personal theory) maybe losing the glasses had something to do with it. Either way, banking on a meaningful regression up.

Where his offense came from, and the underutilization story

This is the chart that screams "massively underutilized." Look at the percentile labels. The bars he had volume on are 90+ across the board:

• Rim Attack: 1.06 PPP, 93.4th percentile, 4.3 per 100. The most-used action. Top-decile efficiency.
• Perimeter Sniper: 1.27 PPP, 96.3rd percentile, 3.4 per 100. Elite catch-and-shoot.
• Perimeter Cut: 1.43 PPP, 92.3rd percentile, 1.6 per 100. Cuts off ball perfectly.
• Reb. & Scramble: 1.36 PPP, 78.3rd percentile, 1.6 per 100. Cleans up live-ball plays.
• Attack & Kick: 1.11 PPP, 92.2nd percentile (low volume).
• Dribble Jumper / Pick & Pop / Big Cut & Roll / Post-Up / Inside-Out / High-Low: all 91-96th percentile efficiency on tiny volumes; never used him in those actions, but the few times Boise did, it worked.
• PnR Passer: 1.10 PPP, 79.2nd percentile. Decent reads when given the keys.
• Transition: 1.22 PPP, 48.9th percentile, 4.0 per 100. The lone non-elite bar.

This isn't a player you stretch with role expansion; this is a player who was already capping out a fixed role and never got asked for more. Only takes good shots. Scores efficiently in every action they tried. The offensive engine reads as way bigger than the 18% usage at Boise.

Fit at Oregon: the least confident call on the roster

Honest framing: he's the least confident starting-lineup call I have. The Torvik view, the early-and-aggressive Oregon offer, the 67 starts in a real conference, and the across-the-board efficiency all point to him opening the year as the starting wing. So does the way the rest of the roster fits around him.

It also wouldn't be even a little surprising if Aristode takes the 3 over him by the end of training camp, or if Meadow holds it for the entire year. Both outcomes are firmly within range. He's a senior, he was the third-best player on a bubble team last year, he's been to war, and we're lucky to have him. Whether he's a 30-minute starter or a high-leverage 18-minute weapon off the bench, the offense alone earns the spot. The defense and rebounding will tell us which one.

6-9 with a near-7-foot wingspan, son of Trevor Ariza, top-30 recruit in the 2026 class. He's a finisher and a connector with a broader skill set than his dad ever had. He can shoot, he can handle, he's a good kid who understands the game. He's not as physically hard-nosed as Trevor was, but he has a broader offensive skill set.

The path here

Westchester High School in Los Angeles, then a transfer to St. John Bosco in April 2025, then a transfer to Link Academy (Branson, Missouri) in October 2025 for his senior year. Link is one of those super-hub prep schools that puts five or six D1 players on the floor at the same time; Jerry Easter went there too. At Link, Tajh was a rotation piece, not a primary part of their plan, and his recruiting ranking fell quite a bit.

His junior year at Westchester he averaged 27 points and 14 rebounds as a primary and was a MaxPreps Junior All-American. Then a lower-body injury in summer 2025 cost him most of the AAU/EYBL window after his junior season, and by the time he was healthy and at Link, he was coming off the bench. The ranking dropped from the mid-teens nationally into the 30s.

By the end of his senior year he had earned a featured spot back in the Link rotation and took home a tournament MVP late in the year, then went on the spring all-star circuit and showed he still belonged with the top end of the class. Highlights from the MVP game (he's #10, with the great hair):

The Dana shooting story

Probably apocryphal but worth repeating: the story is that early in the recruitment, Dana watched Tajh shoot and offered a small mechanical tweak. The next reps were better. Tajh made more of them. The next thing that happened was a commitment to Oregon. Whether the story is exactly true or not, he committed in October 2025.

The skill profile

The Ariza last name carries a specific archetype: long, athletic, hard-nosed defender, low-usage offensive piece who makes the corner three and finishes in transition. Tajh is a different player. He's not the hard-nosed defender Trevor was. What he is: a good player with a real connector profile, a real skill set, and a great frame. He can shoot, he can put the ball on the floor at 6-9, he knows where to be and where to go with the ball. Good passer for his size. The comparison to his dad is mostly just the last name; the game is different.

The spring all-star circuit

He played in the Nike Hoop Summit two years in a row for Team World (representing Japan via his eligibility). That's not a small thing; getting invited once is meaningful, getting invited twice means the scouting consensus held him in the elite class through the volatility of his senior year. His 2026 box read like a connector's line: 22 minutes, 1-of-4 from the field, 2-of-2 from the line, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals. He's not a primary creator and shouldn't be evaluated like one. The scoring number on its own undersells what was actually on the floor.

The other late-spring events landed better. He played the Iverson Classic (May 2026, on the roster), and at the Jordan Brand Classic he led Team Flight in scoring with 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting in 19 minutes, plus 8 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals. That's the version of Tajh Ariza that gets you excited.

The strength piece

Watching him at the Hoop Summit, Tyran Stokes (the #1 recruit in the 2026 class) struggled to finish over Team World's length all afternoon. The one guy he could get clean looks against was Tajh; Stokes was able to push him down on the block a few times and convert. It's not the worst thing in the world to get beat by the number one prospect in the country, but it definitely showed that Ariza needs to add strength. He has the frame for it.

Where he fits

Tajh Ariza is the freshman in the rotation. He doesn't need to start; he doesn't need to be the lead anything. What he does need to do is the connector-piece work: cut, space, rebound, defend wings, attack in transition, take the open three. EM has him at +2.34 BPR projected for his freshman year, which is solid rotation-level production for a true freshman. If he adds strength through the summer, he could log real minutes early, especially in the small-ball looks where Oregon wants a long athletic five-out group.

Bottom line: top-30 in the class, real two-way tools, the kind of skill-forward profile that pays off most for coaches like Altman who can find the right mix of role and development. The strength question gets answered in the weight room over the summer; everything else is already there.

He carries his dad's name, but the difference is this: when you saw Trevor, you said "whoa, that guy plays hard." When you see Tajh, you say "whoa, that kid's smooth." Different games. They can both be good.

He's a very good high-major body who can't shoot. That will have to change for him to become more than really good bench depth. Borderline five-star recruit, USC freshman year that didn't work, the role he played there has very little to do with the player he was in high school, and I think a bounce-back is a real possibility.

The path here

Toledo kid. Emmanuel Christian (Division III HS) to La Lumiere (Indiana) to Link Academy (Missouri) for his senior year. Link's 2024-25 senior class put six players into Division I, with Easter running the backcourt as the team's primary creator. His junior summer on the EYBL circuit, he was 4th in scoring; his senior summer at Link, the role shifted and he was 4th in assists. Those leaderboards are loaded with the best players in a top-end recruiting class.

EYBL leaders his junior (scoring) and senior (assists) summers. Both lists are loaded with the best players of a top-end 2025 class. This is the genesis of the optimism about Easter.

What happened at USC

USC under Eric Musselman runs an offense that stashes two players in the far corners as floor-spacers, then runs three-man actions and high pick-and-roll out of the top. They ended up with Alijah Arenas and Chad Baker-Mazara as the lead creators, and let Easter (the 6-5 ball-handler who'd just been 4th in EYBL in assists) sit in a corner and hopefully shoot threes. It didn't work. Easter can't shoot, so he wasn't a threat out of the corner. Arenas, when he played, was one of the least efficient high-usage players in college basketball; his shot chart is red in every direction. Watching Easter watch Arenas create the offense as the lead creator was ludicrous.

The result is the stat line and the play-type distribution below. He got minutes (28 games, 38% of available, started seven). He scored out of the midrange when he could, got fed as a cutter or a spacer in three-man actions, and rarely got to be the player his recruiting profile said he was. AST% of 9.6 isn't a primary ball-handler's number. It's the number you get when the offense isn't being run through you.

The shot chart

The shooting numbers are bad. 50% at the rim (14th percentile), 40% in the 2P midrange (decent, but the wrong shot for a guard), 23% from three on low volume. The one thing that gives you hope: 74% from the line. That's not a non-shooter's number, and it suggests the form is fixable. One real positive on the shot diet: at 18% three-point rate, he knows he can't shoot and doesn't pretend he can. Most of the chaos is at the rim and in the midrange, where the percentages aren't great either, but at least the shot diet is honest about what he is right now.

How he scores

The bar-by-bar:

• Rim Attack: 0.91 PPP, 69th percentile, 3.3 per 100. Real downhill threat. His best play-type at real volume.
• Mid-Range: 0.81 PPP, 60th percentile, 3.0 per 100. High volume, slightly below average. Not the shot you'd choose, but he's competent at it.
• Perimeter Sniper: 0.71 PPP, 12th percentile, 2.4 per 100. The shooting problem in one bar.
• Hits Cutter: 1.22 PPP, 95th percentile, 0.7 per 100. Elite passer to cutters in the small sample USC let him pass.
• PnR Passer: 1.10 PPP, 79th percentile, 1.1 per 100. The headline upside trait. In the tiny sample USC ran him as a pick-and-roll initiator, he was top-quartile in efficiency. That bar should be 4-5 per 100, not 1.1. His EYBL assist-rate profile and his recruiting reputation as a creator both point in the same direction this bar does.
• Perimeter Cut: 1.07 PPP, 26th percentile, 2.7 per 100. Real volume, low efficiency.
• Transition: 1.01 PPP, 15th percentile, 2.5 per 100.

The rate stats

• AST% 9.6, too low for a primary handler, fine for a secondary one.
• TO% 18.9, higher than you want but the offense was chaos.
• STL% 1.6, average for a guard.
• ORB 4% / DRB 14%, strong rebounding for a 6-5 guard.
• FTR ~37%, very good for a guard. He draws contact.
• On-off splits. The advanced weighted on-off stats are mixed. They rank him as a roughly average, playable rotation guard, which combined with his recruiting profile is consistent with a good Big Ten rotation piece, just short of a starter. That's a useful floor for a true freshman.

Hoop-Explorer similar players

Hoop-Explorer's similar-freshman-year search returns a wide spread: a few names who developed into real college players, a few who didn't, a couple of current freshmen Oregon was reportedly looking at, and at the far optimistic end of the list a Pac-12 lottery-pick-caliber wing as the best-case scenario. The comp set is wide enough that the math doesn't tell you which Easter we're getting. That's a wide range of futures, which is what a 5-star freshman with one bad-team year should look like.

The Easter / Jasper swap

This one comes up in Jasper Johnson's writeup too because it's the central thesis on both players. USC put a guy with a primary-ball-handler recruiting profile into a corner-spacer role. Kentucky put a guy who should be a scoring combo into a primary-ball-handler role. Both collapsed. Flip them: put Easter at Kentucky as the backup behind Jaland Lowe, and put Jasper at USC as a wing spacer alongside whoever ran point, and I think the stories look completely different for both kids. Oregon's job is to recognize that and use each of them in the role the other one was failing in.

Where he fits

Easter is the 10th or 11th body in the rotation. That's where the bet sits. He doesn't need to be a primary creator. He needs to be the secondary backcourt body who backs up Fred Payne at the point, can play alongside Jasper Johnson in a long two-handler look, defends, rebounds, attacks the rim, and runs PnR when he's given the chance. He started seven games at SC as a true freshman, so the floor is "high-major capable body who doesn't get played off the court physically." That's already better than most of our wing rotation last year.

Really late addition to this class, came almost out of nowhere. He was committed to Arizona State until Bobby Hurley got fired in mid-March 2026. Spurlock decommitted, and we were in a great position to scoop him up. He brings a very different identity than the rest of the freshman class on this roster.

Who he is

6-4, 210 pounds, well-built already. Another lefty. I refuse to believe this is an accident. Hard-nosed and physical. The other 2026 freshman on this roster, Tajh Ariza, is the smooth skill player who doesn't bring his dad's edge. Spurlock has that edge. He'll pick up the opposing team's best perimeter player and check him up hard all game long. That's his identity.

The other tell on how hard-nosed he is defensively: at one point or another, he had offers from Auburn, Houston, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, Ole Miss, SMU, Texas A&M, and Rutgers before he picked Arizona State. Kelvin Sampson doesn't offer kids who don't bring the heat. Houston's offer list is its own scouting service for "this guy can defend." That's the kind of company he was keeping coming out of high school.

Where he comes from

Frisco, Texas. Played his prep career at Overtime Elite for Team FaZe. FaZe won the OTE championship in 2025-26, and Spurlock was named Finals MVP — 18.8 PPG across the finals series, with a 27-point Game 4 on 60% shooting.

The MVP run wasn't really about shot creation. The team they played in the finals just didn't have the bodies to match up with him physically around the basket, and he bullied his way to the rim and scored. That's a real thing he can do; it's not the same thing as half-court shot-making against college defenses. (I hesitate to even say this, but it's what Dillon Brooks did when he got to Oregon too: put his head down, physically bullied people to the rim for his shots, and the extreme shot-making came later. It's an unrealistic comp, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Maybe a 1-in-20 shot.)

The OTE caveat applies more broadly too. That league's offensive structure doesn't really resemble a college offense, so you can't translate the specific scoring/playmaking numbers cleanly. He looked good; what that means for his half-court fit in a real system is genuinely unclear.

The skill profile

He's a 2 who doesn't really look for his own offense. When he does take a shot, it's usually charging toward the rim. He hunts simple good shots that he can actually make; not a lot of dalliances in his game. Hard-nosed, high-effort.

The shooting isn't there yet. He has the range out to three, but the volume and percentages aren't anywhere close to elite. He's pretty dynamic in transition: gets up, finishes, attacks the basket physically. The defense, transition, and physicality are the bedrock. The half-court shot creation and the jumper are the development questions.

The recruiting ranking

ESPN has him just outside the top 100. Rivals has him around #200. On3 lands at roughly #170. Maybe I have green-colored glasses on, but those numbers look low given the offer list. Houston and Texas aren't banging down the door of the 200th-best recruit in the country.

Where he fits

Deep, deep bench piece in year one. The high end is that he occasionally moonlights as a Mookie Cook role player: a couple of minutes here and there when we need a defensive jolt against an opposing scorer. That's the ceiling for him as a freshman, not the expectation. The offense is a serious work in progress. EM projects +0.52 BPR.

Bottom line: low-projection freshman with a real defensive identity and a championship resume from his prep year. The shooting is the gating issue for minutes; the body and the competitiveness already play at this level.