CHICAGO -- Dana Altman first confided in long-time assistant Tony Stubblefield that he was considering retirement last Friday. Stubblefield waited for the weekend to pass, hoping his friend would have a change of heart. Altman wanted to meet with Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens on Monday, but Mullens was out of town, so the summit was kicked down the road for 24 more hours.
Late Tuesday, Altman relayed to Stubblefield that he was still leaning toward hanging it up, but he wanted to sleep on it one more night. After Wednesday's practice, Oregon's players gathered for a meeting. Senior wing Andrew Meadow thought they might be getting fresh new shoes.
Instead, Altman dropped the bombshell that he was stepping away, despite being on the doorstep of the exclusive 800 Wins Club. "We had a challenging year last year," Stubblefield said. "Not that it had anything bearing on coach's decision, but I think that took a lot out of him." Stubblefield was elevated to the interim head coach, which meant he had to pack a jet-black suit and hop on a late-Wednesday flight bound for Chicago ahead of Thursday's Big Ten Media Days.
The biggest brouhaha now is the portal. Since Oregon's brass tabbed Stubblefield as the interim coach, Oregon's roster cannot enter the portal until Nov. 7, five days after the Ducks' season-opener against Montana. Exiting Eugene now would mean giving up a season of games and NIL payments to try and transfer over Christmas break?
That's a lot of hoops to jump through. "We've had positive feedback from the majority of the guys that we've been to get ahold of their families and their representation," Stubblefield said. "I will get back to Oregon immediately after this today, and schedule some one-on-one meetings with our players and go over things with them and continue to work the phone and be traveling, I'm sure, over the course of the next three or four days.
We feel like we have a really good group of young men, resilient young men in that locker room, a very talented group of players that we want to keep this group intact, because we felt like we did a great job attacking the portal and bringing in a high school kid or two. We have 11 new guys, and we feel like we have a chance to really make a step in the right direction and get back to the NCAA tournament." The Big Ten's preseason groupthink can agree on two fronts: 1. Michigan State's Jeremy Fears Jr. is the consensus Preseason Player of the Year. 2.
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