Oregon’s Dana Altman lets loose in pointed, season-ending comments

If you have been following Oregon basketball the past few weeks, you know that head coach Dana Altman is fed up. He has had it. More precisely, he has had it with underachieving, which Oregon has done in each of the last two seasons.

Oregon made the Final Four in 2017. The Ducks were a No. 1 seed in 2016. Oregon made the Sweet 16 in 2021. This program expects to be great, and it has been well below average the past two years. Altman has been breathing fire lately, and on Tuesday night — after an NIT loss to Wisconsin ended UO’s season for good — he let loose one final time.

Ducks Wire has more on the story, with lengthy quotes from Altman’s postgame presser. This quote stood out the most:

“I’m not in a very good mood you can tell,” Altman said. “If it’s me, then make the change. Make the change. Somebody will hire me, I’ll go coach junior college ball again. I loved junior college ball. Those guys, those guys were dogs. They wanted to be in the gym all the time. But 3,300 people for Wisconsin? I was disappointed. And I appreciate the people that came, that’s 3,300 people who did come, great. I sure appreciate and you know, the people who have stuck with us. But, again, you know, I’m not a promoter. And I’m not out to public. I don’t have Twitter and all the stuff. My job is to coach, my job is to get the team and coaching and you know, I’m not out there … I’m so bad at promoting, doing those things. But, you know, we have won 20 games for a long time and we have been in the postseason 13 years in a row. And I know this is the NIT, it’s not the NCAA. I understand. I understand. But our guys work hard. And I’m just a little disappointed, but they’re disappointed in us. We didn’t win. And so it works both ways. We didn’t win enough games so I understand the fans’ disappointment. But again, you know, I want guys that want to be here and staff that wants to be here. I want to be here. But I want the fans to want to be here too.”

Some will say this means Oregon basketball is imploding, but the better interpretation is that Dana Altman is going to make sure another year without an NCAA Tournament bid does not happen. He is intent on getting this situation fixed in Eugene.