If Oregon is going to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2020-21 it may need to win all of its nine remaining regular season games and to do that, or anything close, it has to improve on the defensive end of the court.

The hallmarks of success for Dana Altman’s teams — allowing less than 70 points by limiting opponents under 40% shooting and winning the rebounding battle — have become the exception rather than the norm this season.

Oregon (15-7, 7-4 Pac-12) has achieved those three metrics in just four games this season, none in conference play, and had two other instances while allowing 70 and 71 points. Not surprisingly, it is undefeated when it has done so. The Ducks have achieved those marks at least once in conference play in each of the 13 previous seasons under Altman and at least twice in non-pandemic shortened seasons, including five times in league play out of 12 overall last season.

“We can win a lot more games if we were all locked in defensively,” Altman said. “We have not met our standard and because of that we’re 15-7 and defensively if we don’t get things turned around here in the next 5-6 weeks we’re not going to accomplish what we set out to accomplish.”

As of Tuesday, Oregon is 98th in adjusted defensive efficiency, according to KenPom. It is allowing opponents to shoot a Pac-12 worst 45.2% from the field, including 35.7% (11th in Pac-12, 300th nationally) from three, and ranks 10th in the conference and 263rd nationally in rebounding.

Even the four teams that were less efficient defensively during Altman’s tenure did not rank as poorly as this year’s team in field goal percentage defense, three-point defense and rebounding.

“I just think we’re better than that and I told the guys that,” Altman said. “Whether it was me, them, our lack of communication between the coaches and the players or just the players’ communication, whatever it is we should be a much better defensive team than what we are and that’s my fault. (I’m) not getting it done. Not getting them to guard the way they’re capable of.

“For February we’re making way too many mistakes, scouting report mistakes, communication mistakes, that I don’t think we need to make. We’re doing a better job in practice than we are in the games. I wish we’d take some of our Monday, Tuesday practices to Thursday, Saturday. I think we do a much better job with nobody in the gym than we are with crowd and national television watching.”

Altman said “every facet” of the defense has had issues. Spacing, help coverage, transition, rebounding, communication, it’s all been problematic, particularly at the guard spot.

“I think we guard pretty good at practice because nothing else really matters; you can go hard on this possession, hard on this possession and you can keep going and coach will stop it (the play),” Kario Oquendo said.

“I think the game is a different pace. So you got to get used to going at that different pace all the time. Coach says this a lot, that we go at a different pace. We got to learn how to practice at that pace and play at that pace as well. I feel like we have really good effort on some plays and other plays we don’t as a team.”

The Ducks are 3-4 since N’Faly Dante returned to the lineup and while the senior center has been effective, averaging 14.3 points and 5.9 rebounds while shooting 65.6% from the field, he has not cured all that ails UO.

Even with Dante back, the recent injuries to Keeshawn Barthelemy and Mookie Cook, and Nate Bittle missing last weekend’s games at USC and UCLA due to illness, left the Ducks with just eight scholarship players available. It’s difficult for Altman to hold players accountable for defensive busts during games with such a short bench. Altman took ownership for playing what was effectively a six-man rotation during Saturday’s loss to UCLA, though Oregon erased an 18-point deficit in the process, and said he’ll have to do a better job distributing minutes on the perimeter starting Thursday (7 p.m., FS1) against Washington.

Regardless of who is on the court though, the Ducks have to get back to the core pillars that have led to so much of their success under Altman. Oregon has held opponents under 70 points, to less than 40% shooting and won the rebounding battle 106 times over the previous 13 seasons, including 45 in Pac-12 play, and lost less than 10 of those.