Last season record:<\/strong> 25-10, 12-8 Big Ten
Postseason:<\/strong> Eliminated by No. 4-seed Arizona in the NCAA Tournament Round of 32<\/p>\n
Out with the old:<\/strong><\/p>\n TJ Bamba, Keeshawn Barthelemy, Ra\u2019Heim Moss, Jadrian Tracy, Supreme Cook, Brandon Angel, Mookie Cook<\/p>\n In with the new:<\/strong><\/p>\n The preview<\/p>\n Two things can be true for Dana Altman.<\/p>\n The first is one that Altman is still growing into: He\u2019s getting old.<\/p>\n Altman is 67. He\u2019s starting his 16th season coaching the Ducks, his 46th year coaching overall and has entered the part of his career when many of his peers are choosing the golf course over the hardwood. Mike Krzyzewski (75 at retirement), Roy Williams (70), Jay Wright (60), Jim Boeheim (78), Lon Kruger (68), Jim Calhoun (78) and Fran Dunphy (76) have each hung up the whistle since 2021. Altman is harboring more career wins (780) than Bruce Pearl (706), Wright (642), Dunphy (625) and his mentor, Kruger (674).<\/p>\n Altman\u2019s resume is so long, and covers so much ground, that a part of every season from now until he decides to step away will come with some form of retirement question. His latest came from ESPN\u2019s Jeff Borzello at Big Ten media day.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how it got started,\u201d Altman said. \u201cI guess because I\u2019m old. I want to coach as long as I\u2019m healthy and feel like I can do a good job at Oregon and Oregon wants me. I\u2019ve never felt like I\u2019m ready to quit yet.\u201d<\/p>\n That brings forth the second truth: The Oregon coach may just be getting his second wind.<\/p>\n Yes, across football and basketball, coaches are getting younger as the added complications of NIL and the transfer portal have made jobs more taxing than ever. Last year\u2019s NCAA champion? Florida, coached by 40-year-old Todd Golden. The highest-paid coach on Altman\u2019s own campus? The 39-year-old Dan Lanning.<\/p>\n And it wasn\u2019t too long ago that the concept of Oregon basketball going younger didn\u2019t seem outlandish. After reaching the Sweet 16 for the fifth time with the Ducks in 2021, Altman\u2019s Ducks failed to reach the NCAA Tournament the next two seasons, bowing out early in the NIT as crowds dwindled at Matthew Knight Arena. Altman was pushing his mid-60s, his hall-of-fame resume was already padded with a Final Four run and four Pac-12 Conference titles.<\/p>\n Maybe the fire wasn\u2019t there anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cWhoever is saying that is pure speculation,\u201d Altman said on March 5, 2024, with Oregon sitting 19-10 overall and looking well on its way to missing the NCAA Tournament for a third consecutive year. \u201cI\u2019m not going anywhere \u2014 unless the school tells me I\u2019m not here \u2014 but no, I\u2019m not retiring that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n And he\u2019s since backed it up. That team caught fire to win the final Pac-12 Tournament to earn its bid into March Madness.<\/p>\n The Ducks followed it up last year with a 25-10 record, a second straight trip to the Big Dance and Altman immediately shifting the focus to the next season after losing to Arizona in the Round of 32.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope they want to come back, and I hope they want to work their tails off so that we get better,\u201d Altman said of his roster. \u201cWe\u2019ll have those conversations and hopefully they go our way, and if not, then we\u2019ll find a group that wants to be at Oregon and wants to compete in the Big Ten and wants to try to go a little further in the NCAA Tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n The core came back. The Ducks return junior guard Jackson Shelstad and senior center Nate Bittle, a pair of third-team All-Big Ten selections in 2024-25. One or the other led the Ducks in scoring in 19 of Oregon\u2019s 36 games last season.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this could be really fun,\u201d Bittle told Lookout after withdrawing from the NBA Draft during the summer and announcing his return for a final season at Oregon. \u201cWe\u2019re going to take full advantage of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n In Altman\u2019s time at Oregon, the coach has had the most success when he has a roster of veteran players who know his system and have bought into his \u201csimple plays\u201d philosophy. He has that with those two, and also with the return of junior forward KJ Evans, a one-time starter who played the best basketball of his career down the stretch last season coming off the bench and should transition back into the starting lineup.<\/p>\n The Ducks used the portal and international recruiting to bring in Simpkins, Stewart, Pryor, Vatan, Demir, Linn and Frakes. Dedrick Lindsay is healthy. Jamari Phillips has a year of experience. Frakes arrives as a freshman with upside.<\/p>\n They\u2019re seemingly back to the Altman standard, where the question at the start of the year isn\u2019t whether the Ducks will make the NCAA Tournament, but how far they can go once they get there.<\/p>\n But of course, there\u2019s work to be done. Oregon lost reliable contributors such as Bamba, Barthelemy, Tracy, Supreme Cook and Angel. And then there\u2019s Shelstad, who broke his hand in practice and could miss the start of the season.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019ll affect (Shelstad) much, but it\u2019ll slow down our progress as a team,\u201d Altman said. \u201cI was really hoping that Jackson could really bring the team along here early.\u201d<\/p>\n So, there\u2019s a challenge there. And that\u2019s what keeps Altman coming back to the court.<\/p>\n \u201cI love coaching. I love going to the gym,\u201d he said. \u201cGames are torture, but practice is a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"QuickTake: Coming into his 16th season with the Oregon Ducks, Dana Altman, 67, says he’s motivated and still…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":323724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,2076,161675,1317,1337,1338,17494,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-323723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-dana-altman","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaabasketball","14":"tag-premium","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115417650304565297","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_0213.jpg\")
Nate Bittle and Kwame Evans make up one of the most experience front courts in the Big Ten. (Darby Winter photo) Credit: Darby Winter<\/p>\n