Oregon head coach Dana Altman is retiring just weeks before the 2026-27 regular season tips off.
Altman has been the head coach of the Ducks for 16 seasons, compiling a 382-182 record in Eugene. He has a record of 792-425 (.651) in 37 seasons as a Division I head coach.
Of course, former Kentucky guard Jasper Johnson transferred to Oregon after last season. Would it be crazy for him to return to Lexington?
Here is a press release from Oregon Athletics:
EUGENE, Ore. – Oregon head men’s basketball coach Dana Altman, who has more wins than any other coach in program history, is retiring effective immediately, the University of Oregon announced Wednesday.
Altman, 68, won 382 games in 16 seasons in Eugene (382-182, .677) from 2010-11 through 2025-26 and was 792-425 (.651) in 37 seasons as a Division I head coach, the 15th-most wins in NCAA history and fifth highest among active coaches. He took the Ducks to nine NCAA Tournaments and the 2017 Final Four while winning four Pac-12 regular-season championships and four Pac-12 Tournament titles.
Assistant coach Tony Stubblefield, who has spent 13 seasons on Altman’s Oregon staff, will serve as interim head coach for the 2026-27 season. Stubblefield was an original member of Altman’s Oregon staff in 2010 and helped the Ducks reach eight NCAA Tournaments, five Sweet Sixteens, two Elite Eights and a Final Four during his first stint at Oregon. He was head coach at DePaul from 2021-24 before returning to Eugene in 2024.
A national search for the permanent head coach of the Oregon men’s basketball program will commence after the season.
“I have had to make two really tough decisions in my coaching career,” said Altman. “The first was leaving Creighton, a place my family and I dearly loved, to come to Oregon. This is the second. I’ve loved every minute of coaching here, and stepping away is difficult and truly painful. I love coaching, it’s what I know best and what I’ve been fortunate enough to do for almost five decades. I’m going to miss my coaches, my players and our incredible fans more than I can express. But I know this is the right thing to do at this time. I want to thank former AD Pat Kilkenny for giving me a chance here, Phil Knight and Tim Boyle for their constant and unwavering support, my coaches and players past and present, Rob, President Scholz, and of course our amazing fans. It’s been the honor of my life to coach the Ducks.”
“Dana built a program at Oregon to a level that very few coaches build anywhere,” Mullens said. “Winning 382 games over 16 years, including making nine NCAA Tournaments and a Final Four, is an incredible track record. But the record book tells only part of the story. Dana and Reva have given so much of themselves to this university and to the young men who played for him, and we thank him for all his contributions to Oregon student-athletes, the game of basketball, and the University of Oregon.
“Tony has been on Dana’s staff for most of his time in Eugene and knows this program as well as anyone. Our student-athletes know him and trust him, and he is the right person to lead the Ducks this season.”
“For 16 years, Dana led a highly successful and competitive men’s basketball program here at the University of Oregon,” said University of Oregon President Karl Scholz. “He represented Oregon with class and won at an extremely high level. On behalf of the entire university, I want to thank Dana and Reva for everything they’ve done for the Ducks and for our community, and we will miss having him as the leader of our men’s basketball program.”
Altman went 382-182 (.677) at Oregon, nearly 150 more wins than any coach in school history. Ernie Kent is second with 235, and Basketball Hall of Famer Howard Hobson is third with 212. His teams reached the NCAA Tournament nine times, including five consecutive from 2013-17, the first such run in school history. Oregon advanced to the second round in all nine appearances and went 8-0 in first-round games (the 2021 game vs. VCU was declared a no-contest because of multiple positive tests by the Rams, with Oregon advancing). The Ducks reached Sweet Sixteen in 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2021 and the Elite Eight in 2016 and 2017.
The 2016-17 team won a school-record 33 games and 16 conference games and reached the Final Four for the first time since the 1939 Webfoots won the first NCAA championship. Altman and Hobson are the only coaches to take Oregon to a Final Four. A year earlier, the Ducks swept the Pac-12 regular-season and tournament titles for the first time and earned the program’s first No. 1 NCAA seed.
Oregon won Pac-12 regular-season titles in 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2021 and tournament titles in 2013, 2016, 2019 and 2024. Altman is the winningest coach in Pac-12 Tournament history and joined Arizona’s Lute Olson as the only coaches to win it four times. His 2019 team won four games in four days to claim the tournament before reaching the Sweet 16, and his 2024 team beat UCLA, No. 6 Arizona, and Colorado in Las Vegas to win the last one.
Altman was the 2013 Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year and Pac-12 Coach of the Year in 2013, 2015 and 2016, three times in four years, a run matched only by Olson. He was one of four active coaches named Coach of the Year in four different conferences, along with Rick Pitino, Kelvin Sampson, and Herb Sendek. He won at least 20 games in 15 of his 16 seasons at Oregon and 27 times in his career.
His players collected national honors throughout his tenure. Payton Pritchard won the 2020 Bob Cousy Award and was Oregon’s first consensus first-team All-American in 80 years. Chris Duarte won the 2021 Jerry West Award and went 13th overall in the NBA Draft, the highest pick of the Altman era. Joseph Young (2015), Dillon Brooks (2017), and Pritchard (2020) were Pac-12 Players of the Year, and Duarte was the AP’s pick in 2021. Oregon players under Altman who advanced to the NBA include Joseph Young, Dillon Brooks, Jordan Bell, Tyler Dorsey, Chris Boucher, Troy Brown Jr., Bol Bol, Louis King, Payton Pritchard, Chris Duarte, Eugene Omoruyi, and N’Faly Dante.
The Ducks won 25 games in their first Big Ten season in 2024-25, captured the inaugural Players Era Festival, rose to No. 9 in the AP poll, and beat Liberty in the NCAA Tournament before losing narrowly to Arizona in the second round. Nate Bittle and Jackson Shelstad became the program’s first All-Big Ten selections.
Altman came to Oregon in 2010 after 16 seasons at Creighton, where he went 327-176 and led the Bluejays to seven NCAA Tournaments. His 13 straight postseason appearances and 11 straight 20-win seasons there were unmatched in Missouri Valley Conference history. Before Creighton, he went 68-54 in four seasons at Kansas State, taking the Wildcats to the 1993 NCAA Tournament and winning at No. 1 Kansas in 1994, after one season at Marshall, where he was Southern Conference Coach of the Year in 1990. He is a member of the Creighton (2018) and Eastern New Mexico (2023) athletics halls of fame.
A native of Wilber, Neb., Altman and his wife, Reva, have four children, Jordan, Chase, Spencer, and Audra, and three grandchildren.
