Oregon basketball got hit with a jolt on Wednesday afternoon, and it landed just as the season was starting to come into view. With the Ducks only a little more than a week away from beginning the exhibition portion of preseason, news broke that Dana Altman is retiring.
“Oregon coach Dana Altman is retiring, a source confirms to ESPN. Field of 68 first reported. pic.twitter.com/UJeY3UhwiN”
Altman’s departure is especially surprising because Oregon has been in offseason workouts and he had just spoken to the media. The timing leaves the program facing an abrupt change on the doorstep of a new season, and for the first time in 16 years, the Ducks will move forward without him on the sideline.
Altman exits with a 382-182 record at Oregon and a 185-114 mark in conference play across the Pac 12 and Big Ten. During his run, he guided the Ducks to the Final Four in 2017 and won four Pac 12 tournaments along with four regular season league titles. Since arriving in 2010, he had been a model of consistency, winning 20-plus games every year until last season.
That last season, the worst of his Oregon tenure, had already made this year a fascinating one for the Ducks. Altman and his staff worked the Transfer Portal hard and rebuilt the roster, but now that group will belong to someone else. Altman has not yet addressed the media or released a statement, so the reasoning behind the decision remains unstated for now.
Oregon’s immediate answer is former DePaul head coach and current assistant Tony Stubblefield, who will take over as interim head coach. The timing matters here, too: with Stubblefield in place, the transfer portal will stay closed for 31 days rather than opening for just 5 days, which could make it harder for other teams to chip away at the roster this close to the season.
Stubblefield coached DePaul from 2021 through the end of the 2024 season and finished with a 28-54 record, including a 9-38 mark in league play. Because the announcement came so late, Oregon was never going to have the luxury of a full coaching search. The Ducks are expected to let Stubblefield make his case in the interim, with a bigger decision possible down the line if the season goes off track.
The bigger long-term question now sits beyond this season: how much Oregon is willing to invest in the program. That answer will shape both the ceiling of the roster and the level of coach the Ducks can pursue next. NIL and revenue sharing are already major pieces of any coaching search, and if Oregon is prepared to spend like a top Big Ten program, it should be able to draw a significant hire.
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Oregon Is Clearly Worried About UCLAs Biggest Offensive Threat
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Washington also singled out Wayne Knight as a major concern, which is usually the sort of praise Oregon would rather not have to give an opponent before kickoff. Still, his comments suggested confidence in the Ducks preparation and in how much his teammates have grown in handling this kind of test, even if the biggest answer they need will not come until the game itself. [Read more 🡒]