After back-to-back seasons ending in the NIT, Oregon men’s basketball enters the offseason needing to make significant changes in order to return to being an NCAA Tournament team and in contention to win the Pac-12 in 2023-24.

The Ducks will have guard Jermaine Couisnard and center Nate Bittle back, guard Keeshawn Barthelemy likely returning and junior college transfer Jadrian Tracey and top 40 signees Kwame Evans Jr., Mookie Cook and Jackson Shelstad.

As many as eight other players are eligible to return, including starters N’Faly Dante and Rivaldo Soares, but there are 13 scholarship spots, so departures are expected.

“We’re going to evaluate all the guys individually,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “We got to have guys that want to be here. We got to make some changes. We’re not good enough. We’re not coaching good enough. The players aren’t good enough. We’re just not good enough. We got to get better.

“If that means changing personnel, if that means getting in the gym more, but we’re not good enough. I’ve got to start with me: I’m not good enough and then we go right down the list.”

Altman said the coaches would challenge the players.

“If they’re going to stay here, they’re going to work their ass off, and if they don’t then we got to find somebody who will,” he said. “We got too good a situation here. We got facilities and we got a lot of support staff that wants these guys — we got Cliff (Spiller) in the weight room who’s an NBA weightlifting coach. We got the Mariota Center over there. We’ve got nutritionists. We give these guys every advantage and they’ve got to take advantage of it.”

Oregon must improve at three-point shooting and free throws after going 32% from behind the arc and 69.5% at the line this season. It was the second lowest three-point shooting season in program history (31.2%, 1999-2000) and one of the worst ever by an Altman team, narrowly ahead of his 1995-96 Creighton team (31.4%).

“The guys that choose to return, they’re going to have to make some decisions on how much time they want to spend in the gym,” Altman said.

“If you’re shooting under 33%, you either will be really selective or not shoot at all. So guys are going to have to get in the gym and really make a decision because equal opportunity doesn’t exist.

“We go to the numbers. So we’ll evaluate who gets in the gym and who doesn’t and we’ll evaluate the numbers.”

Altman noted that the Ducks’ three-point shooting had dipped for a second consecutive season.

“The last two years we’ve been at the bottom and it’s made a difference in our win totals,” he said.

“So it’s definitely a priority for us and if guys don’t get in the gym and shoot, they’re not going to be allowed to take threes because if you’re shooting under 33%, it doesn’t make any sense for you to shoot the ball.”

Soares attempted 99 threes, third-most behind Will Richardson and Quincy Guerrier, but made just 25.3%. He also made a game-winning three at Oregon State and led UO at the free-throw line at 83.1%, making critical late free throws in the Pac-12 tournament win over Washington State.

Kel’el Ware and Brennan Rigsby shot 27.3% and 27.5% from three, respectively.

Couisnard (33% on threes) and Barthelemy (35.8%), who transferred to UO from South Carolina and Colorado last summer, each being healthy for an entire season should improve the long-range shooting, but their more consistent presence next season won’t solve all issues.

Oregon will certainly be active in the transfer portal to possibly add players, and there are still a few unsigned recruits remaining in the Class of 2023, most notably Bronny James. He is said to be deciding between Ohio State, USC and Oregon, though he doesn’t hold an offer from UO.

By rule, Altman can’t speak publicly in detail about recruits, but he said Oregon doesn’t “recruit to put fans in the seats” because of a recruit’s star power.

“We recruit to win basketball games,” Altman said. “We recruit to get guys here who want to compete and want to — we had great crowds when Dillon Brooks, who was No. (59), and Jordan Bell was (100) and Chris Boucher was on nobody’s list. Payton (Pritchard) was maybe our highest-rated guy at (54). Those guys just played hard and we won.”