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Dana Altman retires after 16 seasons at Oregon, citing health and energy concerns. Tony Stubblefield will serve as interim coach in 2026-27.
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Dana Altman is done at Oregon, effective immediately and just weeks before the season.
The 68-year-old announced his retirement Wednesday after 16 seasons. He leaves as the program's all-time wins leader at 382-182, nearly 150 wins ahead of Ernie Kent. Assistant Tony Stubblefield, who has spent 13 seasons on Altman's Oregon staff and was DePaul's head coach from 2021 to 2024, will be interim coach for 2026-27. A national search will start after the season.
ESPN's Jeff Borzello reported Thursday that because Oregon promoted from within, the Ducks' transfer window won't open for 31 days after Altman's departure. By then, the regular season will have started.
The players found out Wednesday in the film room. "It was a shock to everybody," senior Andrew Meadow, a Boise State transfer, told Borzello at Big Ten media day.
The timing is the story. CBS Sports' Gary Parrish noted that this is the third straight year a power-conference coach with a Final Four on his résumé has retired late in the calendar: Virginia's Tony Bennett on Oct. 18, 2024, Auburn's Bruce Pearl on Sept. 22, 2025, and now Altman on Oct. 7.
Altman's explanation, as Parrish reported from Wednesday's roughly hourlong news conference, was health and energy. "I'm not as healthy as I should be," Altman said. "Or as I want to be." He said it isn't life-threatening. Parrish also cited Oregon columnist John Canzano's report that Altman had to lie down on the court several times during practice last week.
Stubblefield told ESPN that Altman first raised the idea with him the previous Friday, met with athletic director Rob Mullens on Tuesday, and slept on it one more night. "He just didn't feel like he had the energy and was the right guy to lead this group of young men," Stubblefield said.
The Ducks went 12-20 overall and 5-15 in the Big Ten last season, the only year of Altman's 16 at Oregon in which they didn't win at least 20 games.
Altman went 792-425 in 37 seasons as a Division I head coach, the 15th-most wins in NCAA history. He took the Ducks to nine NCAA Tournaments and the 2017 Final Four, the program's first since the 1939 team won the first NCAA title. He won four Pac-12 regular-season titles and four Pac-12 Tournament titles, and he was the 2013 national coach of the year. Before Oregon, he spent 16 seasons at Creighton, where he went 327-176.
"I've loved every minute of coaching here, and stepping away is difficult and truly painful," Altman said in a statement. "But I know this is the right thing to do at this time."
