It’s always best to remember the highs, even when we finish on a low.
We try not to think of an overweight Elvis Presley gyrating in Vegas or Michael Jordan trying his best to make the Wizards respectable.
As such, let’s not define the great Dana Altman by the mercy flush that was his final season in Eugene.
Prior to Altman’s arrival, Oregon Men’s Basketball was a model of inconsistency. Throughout the decade of the 2000s under Ernie Kent, the Ducks had gone from winning the Pac10 outright and making an Elite Eight run to exiting in the first round of the Tournament, to the NIT, to ineptitude, to hopeful, to Pac10 Tournament Champions and another Elite Eight run, to another first round exit, and back to ineptitude.
Mind you, this was all in a span of seven years.
The beginning of Altman’s tenure looked like more slogging through the mud early on, but after the dawn of 2011 and a move to Matthew Knight Arena, things began to click.
Oregon would immediately show probably the number one staple of Dana’s coaching: late season runs.
It was too late to get to the Big Dance, but Oregon squeaked into the CBI and ended up winning the whole thing, marking the first of fifteen consecutive 20-win seasons.
In 2012 Oregon began to look noticeably more competitive and though they didn’t quite make it to the NCAAs, they had another solid NIT run.
Then the tide completely shifted.
Oregon was Pac12 Tournament Champions in 2013 and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. The next season they were dead in the water midseason but finished on a tear to get back and win the first round. The next season, same thing.
2016 saw the best regular season in Oregon history, as the Ducks earned a 1 seed in the Tournament and made another Elite Eight appearance.
Bolstered by their success that season, all eligible star players returned in 2017 for a second go at it.
Probably the most complete team in Oregon history this time, Oregon pushed through losing star Chris Boucher and had their crowning moment in the Elite Eight, dominating 1 seed Kansas in their own town to make it to their first Final Four since television sets became mainstream.
A missed rebound was all that prevented the Ducks from playing for a National Championship, and Oregon had been in the NCAA Tournament and advanced at least past the first round for five consecutive years, unheard of before Dana’s arrival.
Following this, Oregon took a bit of a step back in 2018, failing to make the Tournament but still winning 20+ games. In 2019, it seemed a sure thing that the Ducks were bound to watch the NCAAs from the couch, as approaching March they were only in the middle of the conference.
As Altman so often did, he had the team firing on all cylinders at the finish. Oregon won 10 consecutive games, four regular season, four straight in the Pac12 Tournament, then two more in the Big Dance to reach another Sweet Sixteen.
In 2020 Oregon captured another conference regular season title and were NCAA bound yet again before the global pandemic shut sports down for a stretch.
Coming back out of it, Altman didn’t miss a beat, capturing another Conference regular season crown and advancing to another Sweet Sixteen.
Having firmly etched his name into Oregon lure at this point, Dana’s 2022 and 2023 squads experienced an oddity as they failed to produce down the stretch, missing the Tournament both times.
As 2024 seemed to continue down the same path and questions arose of Altman losing his touch, he worked his magic yet again. Oregon stormed to the final Pac12 Tournament title and were very narrowly defeated in the second round.
Playing in the Big Ten the following year, it seemed the Ducks might be overpowered playing in their new conference, as they fell off the bubble completely in early February.
Guess what happened?
Altman coached the team to a red-hot finish yet again, and Oregon had another NCAA Tournament spot.
At this point Oregon Basketball had achieved the most wins in the month of March the last 15 years, surpassing Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Duke.
With a returning core and plenty of new talent in 2026, expectations were again high for the Ducks. But finally, after all that time and all that success, things did not click into place, instead falling apart as Oregon dropped near the bottom of the conference and out of any postseason contention.
Altman appeared visibly tired and frustrated during the season, and helped refill Oregon’s roster the following summer after a mass exodus.
This fall, the Ducks had their roster set and though expectations weren’t towering, there was hope Altman could, as he had done so many times before, take a ragtag group of players on an unexpected run of success.
But it turns out, Dana didn’t quite have enough left in him to see the season through, and hung things up.
It wasn’t how Duck fans had envisioned him leaving. Most had expected a preseason announcement that it was his final campaign and the rest of the season would be somewhat of a tribute to the future Hall of Fame coach, perhaps culminating in a big ceremony during Oregon’s last home game.
But perhaps Altman didn’t want it that way. Perhaps he did the right thing by realizing it was best to stop when he felt ready to stop rather than clawing through for everyone else’s sake.
He’s earned that.
Tony Stubblefield will lead the Ducks this season, after which Oregon will search the nation for the next coach to push them back into national relevance.
But don’t forget the reason that’s the expectation now. Don’t forget why it’s not unusual to expect a 5-star signing and a seeding in the NCAAs pretty much every season moving forward.
It’ll take the right coach of course, and the right coach set that standard when it was never a thing in Eugene before.
Thanks Coach.