With the college basketball season over for over 99 percent of teams in the nation, it’s no surprise that the transfer portal has started to head up over the past couple of weeks. Already we have seen a couple of players — Tyrone Williams and Kel’el Ware — announce that they would be leaving Eugene and searching for a new team going forward.
Neither of those announcements came as a major surprise, and more people are expected to leave the Ducks this offseason as well. In turn, we can absolutely expect to hear some names of players transferring to Oregon as well. Already, Jadrian Tracey has announced that he will join the Ducks in 2023, coming from Florida Southwestern State.
There are other players who the Ducks have shown interest in as well. The latest player is former Northern Colorado player Dalton Knecht, according to a report from CBB writer Sean Paul. Knecht is an elite scorer who averaged 20.2 points per game last season.
Here’s what you need to know about him:
The Report
Northern Colorado star transfer Dalton Knecht has heard from these schools per source:
UNC
Oregon
Kansas
Arkansas
Indiana
Missouri
GCU
LSU
Iowa State
Oklahoma
Utah
Washington
Nebraska
Colorado
Arizona State
Ole Miss
IllinoisOne of the five best players in the portal.
— Sean Paul (@SeanPaulCBB) March 27, 2023
Andy Patton's Take
Here’s what Ducks Wire’s Andy Patton had to say about Knecht:
Knecht exploded into an elite scorer for Northern Colorado last year, averaging 20.2 points per game to lead the Big Sky.
The former JuCo star is a late bloomer and a very high-level player, which makes it hard to know if he’d come to Oregon unless he could play a featured role.
Would that happen with Cook and Evans in the mix? Probably not, but Knecht is a name to keep an eye on regardless.
2022-23 Stats
- 32 Games | 35 MPG, 20.2 PPG, 7.2 REB, 1.8 AST
- Three-Point Shooting: 38.1%
- Field Goal: 47.9%
A Year 2 Leap
What’s the most impressive to see about Knecht was the improvement that he made from Year 1 to Year 2. In 2021-22, Knecht averaged just 8.9 PPG, 3.6 REB, and 0.9 AST. If you compare that to 2022-23, where he averaged over 20 PPG and almost 9 REB, it shows the high ceiling that he could have at the next level.
