Big Ten Tournament: Dana Altman's Ducks introduce themselves
Retire? In this economy?
A day before leaving for the Big Ten Tournament for the first time in his coaching career, Dana Altman got asked the retirement question. It’s been floating around a bit lately, this time thanks to an ESPN.com article in February that listed the 66-year-old Oregon coach as a potential candidate to hang up the clipboard.
“Maybe they know something that I don’t,” Altman said. “Do I act that old? I’m not that old. Shoot, 66 isn’t that old, right?”
The 15-year Oregon coach made his position pretty simple: He likes to coach basketball and he has no intentions of stopping. The next morning, Altman jumped on a plane headed for Indianapolis. His Ducks were hot — winners of seven straight — and came into Indy as a program harboring 11 consecutive conference tournament appearances with at least one win.
That’s been the Altman standard. And after a 72-59 win over the Hoosiers in front of a very pro-Indiana crowd to advance to the Tournament’s quarterfinal round, it remained the standard.
And oh, did Altman like this one.