N’Faly Dante arrives at UO, will travel with Oregon basketball to No. 5 Michigan but won’t play

EUGENE — N’Faly Dante has arrived at Oregon and will travel with the No. 10 Ducks to No. 5 Michigan, but the 6-foot-11 center is not going to play since he will not have so much as practiced with the team yet.

Dante, a five-star prospect from Mali, committed to Oregon in August, graduated early and reclassified as a 2019 signee but wasn’t initially cleared by the NCAA. His initial-eligibility waiver (IEW) was granted by the NCAA late last month but with UO’s fall quarter not finishing until Friday, Dante is not permitted to take the court with the basketball program until Saturday, when Oregon is in Ann Arbor (9 a.m., CBS).

“We’ll probably take him on the trip,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “He got in (Wednesday) but he probably won’t play.”

Altman said there wasn’t much the staff could do ahead of time to help Dante to learn the team’s plays or be prepared to take the court faster once he arrived.

New teammate and roommate Francis Okoro is doing his part to get Dante up to speed before he can take the court.

“He’s tall; I don’t know if he’s 7-foot or 7-1 but he’s super tall,” said Okoro, who believes the Ducks could play him and Dante together at some point this season. “I don’t know what coach is thinking but that would be a good lineup just like me and Kenny (Wooten) last year. Whatever coach fixing but I’m excited to play with him and he’s so excited to be here.”

With Saturday’s marquee game off the table, No. 10 Oregon (7-2) wraps up nonconference play with Montana (Dec. 18), Texas Southern (Dec. 21) and Alabama State (Dec. 29).

The hope is Dante can get up to speed in less than three weeks before the Ducks open Pac-12 play at Colorado Jan. 2.

“It’ll be a learning curve there and we won’t rush him," Altman said. "We’ll give him his time and I think he’s in decent shape — he says he is anyway; we’ll see about that. It’ll be a learning curve and I’m sure it’ll take at least a month. We’ve been practicing for a couple of months; it’ll take him a while to catch up.”

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