Oregon found guard Chris Duarte at Florida Southwestern JC. He’s now the best player in the Pac-12.

is introduced before Wednesday’s night’s game against UCLA.

 Andy Nelson / the associated press

Oregon’s six-year climb to the so-called mountaintop of Pac-12 basketball includes so many disruptive elements that it doesn’t seem possible the Ducks could have gone 10-2 against Arizona.

For starters, the Ducks can match Arizona’s recruiting mishaps of the last six years bust for bust.

Busts: Four-star Oregon recruits M.J. Cage and Keith Smith transferred to Pepperdine. Four-star big man Kavell Bigley-Williams left for LSU. Four-star shooter Victor Bailey bailed out for Tennessee. Five-star forward C.J. Walker is now at UCF. Four-star forward Addison Patterson is at Nevada.

That’s six busts in six years, a period in which Arizona also lost much-heralded Emmanuel Akot, Alex Barcello, Devonaire Doutrive, Brandon Randolph, Kobi Simmons and Brandon Williams.

The Ducks have also lost three one-and-done players: Louis King, Bol Bol and Troy Brown.

Yet Wednesday night’s 82-74 win over UCLA means that a win in Sunday’s final regular-season Pac-12 game over Oregon State will give the Ducks a fourth championship in six years.

So what is it? Why have the Ducks won nine NCAA Tournament games in a period Arizona has won just two? There’s got to be more to it than the NCAA/FBI investigation that has rattled the reputation of UA basketball.

I think it can be explained in four parts:

1. Oregon coach Dana Altman has established a stability and anchored program that has only been matched by Oregon State’s Ralph Miller and Arizona’s Lute Olson over 40 years. Altman’s two lead assistants, Tony Stubblefield and Kevin McKenna, have been by his side for the entire 11-year period at Oregon. Third assistant Mike Mennenga is in his seventh year.

That’s the type of soul — family atmosphere — that Ralph Miller generated with 20-year assistant coach Jimmy Anderson and Olson had with 18-year assistant Jim Rosborough. It was home. You can’t affix a value to that kind of consistency.

In 12 years at Arizona, Sean Miller has had 10 assistant coaches. Since his brother Archie left for Dayton and Rosborough-like assistant James Whitford became the head coach at Ball State, Miller hasn’t been able to match the difference-making stability.

2. The Ducks identified, signed and developed a franchise player, point guard Payton Pritchard. During Pritchard’s four years at Oregon, the Wildcats started a different point guard every season: Justin Coleman, Nico Mannion, Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Kadeem Allen. A few weeks ago, Miller referred to point guard James Akinjo as his club’s “commander.” Pritchard was a commander. Arizona hasn’t had one since T.J. McConnell in 2015.

A jam-packed episode of the podcast covers all the bases, including a reflection of a sports-heavy weekend in Tucson. The Star's Justin Spears and Alec White are joined by Michael Lev to provide a game-by-game analysis of Arizona's 2021 football schedule — aka Year One of the Jedd Fisch era. Realistically, how many games will Arizona win under Fisch in his debut season? Gronk vs. Bruschi spring game? Yes please. Plus, 2022 California running back Jonah Coleman, who committed the Wildcats this week, breaks down his pledge to the Wildcats. To wrap up the podcast, the Star's Bruce Pascoe hops on to discuss the UA basketball team's 2020-21 season and offseason plans for the Wildcats, specifically Sean Miller's contract that's set to expire in 2022.

3. Altman and his staff have been adept — masterful, really — at evaluating and acquiring transfers.

Over the six-year period that the Ducks took charge of the league, Altman has been praised for his X’s and O’s, but that’s just a piece of his success. Getting the most out of grad transfers and junior-college transfers has separated Oregon from Arizona.

Both schools have deployed 14 transfers in that six-year period. Oregon’s 14 transfers have scored 6,667 points. Arizona’s 14 transfers have scored 3,871 points.

Both schools have had one transfer become an All-Pac-12 player — Arizona’s Ryan Anderson in 2016 and Oregon’s Elgin Cook in 2017 — but the Ducks had big-game performers such as Dwayne Benjamin, Chris Boucher, Dylan Ennis, MiKyle McIntosh, Elijah Brown, Paul White, Shakur Juiston and, this year, Chris Duarte, L.J. Figueroa and Eugene Omoruyi.

Duarte is now the best player in the league. Altman found him at Florida Southwestern JC, a remarkable discovery inasmuch as Duarte’s other offers were from UCF, New Mexico State, Western Kentucky and Temple, among others.

Arizona hasn’t been able to match Oregon’s productivity from transfers, a variable in modern-day college basketball that has become as important as signing blue-chip freshmen. The Wildcats’ most productive transfers in the six-year period have been Anderson and Allen, but for every Boucher and Ennis at Oregon, the Wildcats have deployed a less-feared transfer, such as Chase Jeter and Mark Tollefsen.

4. Since Solomon Hill left in 2013 and McConnell departed in 2015, few players have fully developed under Miller the way Altman has been able to get the max out of those like Pritchard, who started out averaging 9 points per game as a freshman but became the Pac-12 player of the year in 2020, averaging 21.

Oregon forward Eugene Omoruyi (2) is checked on by Oregon head coach Dana Altman during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Monday, March 1, 2021, in Eugene, Ore. (AP Photo/Andy Nelson)

Arizona potentially had a similar situation. Alex Barcello, the Arizona prep player of the year in 2015 and 2016 at Tempe Corona del Sol High School, was a four-star recruit in the class of 2017. Oregon, ASU, Colorado, Baylor, Butler and Auburn offered him scholarships, but he chose Arizona and was given a short leash.

Miller often referred to Barcello as the club’s best long-distance shooter, but Barcello mostly watched as Allonzo Trier, Deandre Ayton, Rawle Alkins and Dusan Ristic took the shots. He averaged just 9.6 minutes per game a year as a freshman and 9.5 as a sophomore.

Rather than develop as Pritchard did at Oregon, Barcello shot a hard-to-believe 29.7% from 3-point distance at Arizona. His confidence evaporated. He transferred to BYU, where he is a lock to be a first-team All-West Coast Conference selection, averaging a team-high 15.7 points per game and shooting 49% from 3-point range.

What happened to Barcello at Arizona shows some of the differences between Oregon and Arizona. The Wildcats didn’t get a hint of how good he could be.

A few days ago, columnist Dick Harmon of the Salt Lake Deseret News wrote about Barcello’s development at BYU. He quoted Barcello’s mother, Shelli, a former Canyon del Oro High School state championship player from 1987, saying that when Barcello left Arizona: “He was so broken. It was so devastating as a mom to see her son come before her like that.”

It’s easy to say college basketball is all about recruiting, but player development is no worse than 1-A. It is the difference between Arizona and Oregon.

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Contact sports columnist Greg Hansen at 520-573-4362 or ghansen@tucson.com.

On Twitter: @ghansen711