Photo by: GoDucks.com
Altman Discusses the Team's Progress
09/10/26 | Men's Basketball
EUGENE, Ore. – Head Coach Dana Altman met with the media this morning to preview the upcoming season, as the team returns to practice. The full transcript is below.
Â
Opening remarks:
First of all, most importantly, Steve Pikiell at Rutgers announced yesterday that he has cancer, so we want to wish Steve the best. He's an outstanding coach, an outstanding representative of our profession. He's hard-nosed and gets his teams to play hard. He's young, 58, I read. So, wishing Steve the best.
Â
On the team's progression after one week of practice:
The guys have been good. They've been good to work with. Having so many new players — we're used to adding a transfer or two, but when you get eight or nine portal guys coming in and two freshmen, it is different. Fortunately, we had an opportunity to go to Canada and play three exhibition games, and that helped us because it put some urgency into the summer in terms of getting some things ready. The guys had a little different perspective, so that was good.
But we've got a long ways to go. We just got the guys back a week ago. After we got back from Canada, we gave them two and a half to three weeks off and just got them back last week. Now we're trying to get them back so we can do some live stuff and get practice started here in a couple weeks. We've got a good group — talented, young and inexperienced. But Jasper Johnson, there's a reason he was a top-30, whatever number he was. Dwayne Aristode, there was a reason he was a top-50. Those guys are talented. I know they didn't get to play a lot, they averaged 12 or 13 minutes a game, respectively, at Kentucky and Arizona, but they're talented.
I really like Tyrone Riley's talent, Tajh Ariza. There's a reason he was a top-20, top-30 kid. We've got some talented young men. Fred Payne, the guard we got from Boston College, is tough, hard-nosed and has some experience. Tony Stubblefield did a great job. He's taken a lot of things off my plate. I'm not very good with the agents. I get combative with them, and they're controlling everything now. It's a difficult time, or a change in our sport, it's not recruiting anymore; it's negotiation, and I'm just not very good at it. Tony did most of the work on that.
Â
On the group's chemistry so far:
I think the guys get along good. They have so far. Now, we haven't faced any adversity. Character's revealed in times of stress and adversity. But they've been great to work with. We got a new weightlifting coach, Brandon Kuhn, who came in from Texas A&M. I really think he's doing a great job with them. They've been great in the weight room. I like what we've done there. The chemistry — the guys have really made an effort to work together, play together, be professional, be on time. All those little things add up to a good team. They've had a really good summer. We've avoided injury, so that's a big thing. Hopefully that'll continue through September and October.
Â
On the process of getting Wei Lin back:
Well, you know, everything changes. We've never had anybody enter the portal and then come back. It's kind of like you ask somebody for a divorce. The divorce is in place, but that doesn't mean I don't stay in contact with the guys. He just didn't have the offers that he wanted and felt like he could still make a contribution here. He's a worker. I've got nothing against his work ethic. Nothing. He turned the ball over a little too much for me last year and for what I was looking for, what our team was looking for. He's working really hard to cut those turnovers down. Wei's a really good kid. Everybody loves him on the team. Great attitude, great work ethic. I mean, we talked about the weight room, he's in the gym. So there are a lot of positives. He wanted to come back, and the coaching staff felt like it was worth bringing him back. I just had to remind him that if you're in, you're in, and he decided he wanted to come back. Like I said, he can really help us if he controls the ball a little better. His instincts are good. He can score. He can shoot it. He didn't show that last year, but if you look at the last half of the season, once he got a little more comfortable, his numbers went up when I played him less and he got comfortable. We put him in a tough spot. We brought him in to play with Jackson (Shelstad), and that just never happened. I think he can make strides. He and Fred together are pretty good. He and Jasper together are pretty good. He and Jerry (Easter) together. So we've got some different guard combinations there that I think will work pretty good.
Â
On how the team performed in Canada:
Andrew Meadow really stood out in Canada, and he's stood out in a lot of areas, the weight room, work ethic, practices. Andrew's going to be a core guy for us. There's no doubt about it. He just brings it every day. So he really stood out. You saw Tajh's ceiling. He's got a high ceiling. He is talented. You get excited about that. Our staff had a lot more time to go over film. We reached out to every coach that had coached them, trying to really get a feel. I thought our guys, our coaches, did a good job of really getting a feel for everybody, and what we saw in Canada kind of exemplified that.
Â
On temporary restraining orders and guys fighting for extra years:
That's a tough question. Nobody has the right answer for that. We got Malique Ewin. He never went pro, never put his name in (the NBA Draft) or anything. He was trying to get a fifth year because he only played 12 or 13 games at Mississippi one year. So he was trying to get a year for that.
It's just a difficult question. I want guys to be able to play, but we've got to have some rules somewhere. If a guy goes pro, it's pretty hard to say, "Okay, you can come back." Either you put your name into the pros or you don't. But with what we're paying guys now, it's financially worth it for them to challenge everything, and that's what's happening. So, it's a mess. I mean, that's the only way you can say it. It's a mess. We've only got one player in that situation. He does raise our ceiling. He is a talented young man. He's got a lot of experience from Arkansas and Florida State, so he is a good player. We'll just have to wait and see how it all works out. It is a challenging time putting rosters together. When I started 30-some years ago, 40-some years ago, you never saw it coming to this. I thought eventually we would pay players something because of the amount of money that was being generated by the NCAA basketball tournament and the bowl games. I thought eventually we should pay them. You can't brag about making a billion dollars on your NCAA basketball tournament and not have the kids' parents be able to afford to come. We've got to give them something. But I never saw this coming. The pendulum went from way over here to way over here, and it's drastically changed things. It's going to take a few years to get it ironed out.
Â
On the status of Ewin's eligibility and when that will be resolved:
I mean, your guess is as good as mine. We just have to wait and see. He can (participate) now. His court — like I read one of the court decisions today, he got to stay, and so now the kids can't practice or work out. They haven't got a stay on his, so he still can work out.
Â
On his new offseason hires of Markhuri Sanders-Frison and Tom Hankins:
Well, we lost a great offensive mind in Kevin McKenna. He had let me know almost two years ago that this last year was going to be his last year, and so we had kind of planned on it. That's why we brought Khuri back last year, preparing him to take a role. Khuri's going to do a good job. He works hard. He's got really good feel. Individual workouts, he's really good. Tom Hankins replaced Mike Mennenga, and he was a G League head coach for the Pacers the last six years.
With as many new guys and the offense that we've run, there are so many things predicated on counters and reads that it takes a while. Like Dillon (Brooks') last year, that third year, he knew our offense inside and out. He was calling the counters from the bench and telling guys, "They're going to cover it this way, go this way." It takes a little bit more time with the stuff that we were running.
So I thought, with the G League, those guys are coming and going all the time. I've always liked (Rick) Carlisle, the coach for the Pacers, and the stuff he's done. I think he's a really good offensive coach, for whatever that's worth. I just liked the stuff that Tom was doing. Tom has college experience. He was in the college game at Oral Roberts and Southern Illinois, and then was in the NBA for six or seven years. He's done a great job putting stuff in and getting the guys comfortable with it. It's all stuff I'm familiar with, but we wanted someone who would run it. We're going to mix in a lot of the things that we have done, but we're going to put a lot of different stuff in. The guys seem to really like it because it's a lot of threes and they get to stand on the perimeter, all the things they love to do. I think both those guys will do a great job. Again, Tony's been here a long time, and (Brian) Fish has been around a long time. Josh (Jamieson) has been around a long time. Scott (McByrne) is really good. We've got a great staff, and hopefully we'll get back. Last year was hard on everybody. We didn't play well, injuries affected us. It was a long year. So we've got to bounce back and try to get some things going.
Â
On the team's shooting:
Absolutely. Andrew's a really good shooter. We don't have anybody who can't shoot it on the perimeter, so I think we've drastically improved our three-point shooting. That was a big concern, obviously. We don't have a go-to guy like Nate (Bittle) or (N'Faly) Dante on the block, so we do have to play a little differently there. But I think we've got the personnel to do it.
Â
On if Kendre Harrison will be on the team after football season:
There are so many factors there — how long they go and how much he's playing. Obviously, he's an NFL-potential type player. But if Dan (Lanning) will let him, we definitely have no problems letting him join our team when they're done. You can always get a couple minutes of rebounding and defense out of him. I did see him play a number of times with his EYBL team, and if he had focused on basketball, he'd be a really good basketball player. I don't know if he's an NBA player because of his size, but he'd give himself a chance. Nobody thought Dillon Brooks was an NBA player, and he's pretty good in the NBA. There are a lot of the same characteristics. He plays hard. He rebounds.
So, if it all works out, hopefully they're playing clear into January, and it'd be a little hard of an adjustment. But he could still give us defense and rebounding for a few minutes, especially if we have some injuries like we did a year ago. He could give us a few minutes.
Â
On if the team has a rim protector like Nate Bittle or N'Faly Dante:
Not like that. No, no. We don't have Chris Boucher, Jordan Bell, Dante. We don't have that type.
Taylor Bol-Bowen is probably our best. He's got to get a little more comfortable challenging more shots. I think we've got some guys that can challenge shots, but we don't have anybody who's going to go block 70 shots. That was a luxury that Nate gave us. Like I said, there's a lot of things negative about our game, but Nate Bittle is what's positive about our game. He stayed here. He could have gotten a lot more money putting his name in the portal, all that, and he stayed. He sprains his ankle in November. They tell me it's going to be five weeks. He fights his tail off, gets back in three to go on the road to UCLA. Now, he didn't have a good game, but just the fact that he worked his butt off to get back in three weeks. He sprains the other ankle against Nebraska, and they tell me this one's worse than the other one. "Going to be five weeks minimum, Coach." He comes back in three weeks to play on the road at Purdue and gives us a chance to win the game. So, like I said, there's a lot of things that aren't right, maybe, but if fans are looking for something that is right, a hometown guy stays because he wants to play for the University of Oregon. He fights his tail off to get back from two injuries, that is what's right.
Â
Â
Â
Opening remarks:
First of all, most importantly, Steve Pikiell at Rutgers announced yesterday that he has cancer, so we want to wish Steve the best. He's an outstanding coach, an outstanding representative of our profession. He's hard-nosed and gets his teams to play hard. He's young, 58, I read. So, wishing Steve the best.
Â
On the team's progression after one week of practice:
The guys have been good. They've been good to work with. Having so many new players — we're used to adding a transfer or two, but when you get eight or nine portal guys coming in and two freshmen, it is different. Fortunately, we had an opportunity to go to Canada and play three exhibition games, and that helped us because it put some urgency into the summer in terms of getting some things ready. The guys had a little different perspective, so that was good.
But we've got a long ways to go. We just got the guys back a week ago. After we got back from Canada, we gave them two and a half to three weeks off and just got them back last week. Now we're trying to get them back so we can do some live stuff and get practice started here in a couple weeks. We've got a good group — talented, young and inexperienced. But Jasper Johnson, there's a reason he was a top-30, whatever number he was. Dwayne Aristode, there was a reason he was a top-50. Those guys are talented. I know they didn't get to play a lot, they averaged 12 or 13 minutes a game, respectively, at Kentucky and Arizona, but they're talented.
I really like Tyrone Riley's talent, Tajh Ariza. There's a reason he was a top-20, top-30 kid. We've got some talented young men. Fred Payne, the guard we got from Boston College, is tough, hard-nosed and has some experience. Tony Stubblefield did a great job. He's taken a lot of things off my plate. I'm not very good with the agents. I get combative with them, and they're controlling everything now. It's a difficult time, or a change in our sport, it's not recruiting anymore; it's negotiation, and I'm just not very good at it. Tony did most of the work on that.
Â
On the group's chemistry so far:
I think the guys get along good. They have so far. Now, we haven't faced any adversity. Character's revealed in times of stress and adversity. But they've been great to work with. We got a new weightlifting coach, Brandon Kuhn, who came in from Texas A&M. I really think he's doing a great job with them. They've been great in the weight room. I like what we've done there. The chemistry — the guys have really made an effort to work together, play together, be professional, be on time. All those little things add up to a good team. They've had a really good summer. We've avoided injury, so that's a big thing. Hopefully that'll continue through September and October.
Â
On the process of getting Wei Lin back:
Well, you know, everything changes. We've never had anybody enter the portal and then come back. It's kind of like you ask somebody for a divorce. The divorce is in place, but that doesn't mean I don't stay in contact with the guys. He just didn't have the offers that he wanted and felt like he could still make a contribution here. He's a worker. I've got nothing against his work ethic. Nothing. He turned the ball over a little too much for me last year and for what I was looking for, what our team was looking for. He's working really hard to cut those turnovers down. Wei's a really good kid. Everybody loves him on the team. Great attitude, great work ethic. I mean, we talked about the weight room, he's in the gym. So there are a lot of positives. He wanted to come back, and the coaching staff felt like it was worth bringing him back. I just had to remind him that if you're in, you're in, and he decided he wanted to come back. Like I said, he can really help us if he controls the ball a little better. His instincts are good. He can score. He can shoot it. He didn't show that last year, but if you look at the last half of the season, once he got a little more comfortable, his numbers went up when I played him less and he got comfortable. We put him in a tough spot. We brought him in to play with Jackson (Shelstad), and that just never happened. I think he can make strides. He and Fred together are pretty good. He and Jasper together are pretty good. He and Jerry (Easter) together. So we've got some different guard combinations there that I think will work pretty good.
Â
On how the team performed in Canada:
Andrew Meadow really stood out in Canada, and he's stood out in a lot of areas, the weight room, work ethic, practices. Andrew's going to be a core guy for us. There's no doubt about it. He just brings it every day. So he really stood out. You saw Tajh's ceiling. He's got a high ceiling. He is talented. You get excited about that. Our staff had a lot more time to go over film. We reached out to every coach that had coached them, trying to really get a feel. I thought our guys, our coaches, did a good job of really getting a feel for everybody, and what we saw in Canada kind of exemplified that.
Â
On temporary restraining orders and guys fighting for extra years:
That's a tough question. Nobody has the right answer for that. We got Malique Ewin. He never went pro, never put his name in (the NBA Draft) or anything. He was trying to get a fifth year because he only played 12 or 13 games at Mississippi one year. So he was trying to get a year for that.
It's just a difficult question. I want guys to be able to play, but we've got to have some rules somewhere. If a guy goes pro, it's pretty hard to say, "Okay, you can come back." Either you put your name into the pros or you don't. But with what we're paying guys now, it's financially worth it for them to challenge everything, and that's what's happening. So, it's a mess. I mean, that's the only way you can say it. It's a mess. We've only got one player in that situation. He does raise our ceiling. He is a talented young man. He's got a lot of experience from Arkansas and Florida State, so he is a good player. We'll just have to wait and see how it all works out. It is a challenging time putting rosters together. When I started 30-some years ago, 40-some years ago, you never saw it coming to this. I thought eventually we would pay players something because of the amount of money that was being generated by the NCAA basketball tournament and the bowl games. I thought eventually we should pay them. You can't brag about making a billion dollars on your NCAA basketball tournament and not have the kids' parents be able to afford to come. We've got to give them something. But I never saw this coming. The pendulum went from way over here to way over here, and it's drastically changed things. It's going to take a few years to get it ironed out.
Â
On the status of Ewin's eligibility and when that will be resolved:
I mean, your guess is as good as mine. We just have to wait and see. He can (participate) now. His court — like I read one of the court decisions today, he got to stay, and so now the kids can't practice or work out. They haven't got a stay on his, so he still can work out.
Â
On his new offseason hires of Markhuri Sanders-Frison and Tom Hankins:
Well, we lost a great offensive mind in Kevin McKenna. He had let me know almost two years ago that this last year was going to be his last year, and so we had kind of planned on it. That's why we brought Khuri back last year, preparing him to take a role. Khuri's going to do a good job. He works hard. He's got really good feel. Individual workouts, he's really good. Tom Hankins replaced Mike Mennenga, and he was a G League head coach for the Pacers the last six years.
With as many new guys and the offense that we've run, there are so many things predicated on counters and reads that it takes a while. Like Dillon (Brooks') last year, that third year, he knew our offense inside and out. He was calling the counters from the bench and telling guys, "They're going to cover it this way, go this way." It takes a little bit more time with the stuff that we were running.
So I thought, with the G League, those guys are coming and going all the time. I've always liked (Rick) Carlisle, the coach for the Pacers, and the stuff he's done. I think he's a really good offensive coach, for whatever that's worth. I just liked the stuff that Tom was doing. Tom has college experience. He was in the college game at Oral Roberts and Southern Illinois, and then was in the NBA for six or seven years. He's done a great job putting stuff in and getting the guys comfortable with it. It's all stuff I'm familiar with, but we wanted someone who would run it. We're going to mix in a lot of the things that we have done, but we're going to put a lot of different stuff in. The guys seem to really like it because it's a lot of threes and they get to stand on the perimeter, all the things they love to do. I think both those guys will do a great job. Again, Tony's been here a long time, and (Brian) Fish has been around a long time. Josh (Jamieson) has been around a long time. Scott (McByrne) is really good. We've got a great staff, and hopefully we'll get back. Last year was hard on everybody. We didn't play well, injuries affected us. It was a long year. So we've got to bounce back and try to get some things going.
Â
On the team's shooting:
Absolutely. Andrew's a really good shooter. We don't have anybody who can't shoot it on the perimeter, so I think we've drastically improved our three-point shooting. That was a big concern, obviously. We don't have a go-to guy like Nate (Bittle) or (N'Faly) Dante on the block, so we do have to play a little differently there. But I think we've got the personnel to do it.
Â
On if Kendre Harrison will be on the team after football season:
There are so many factors there — how long they go and how much he's playing. Obviously, he's an NFL-potential type player. But if Dan (Lanning) will let him, we definitely have no problems letting him join our team when they're done. You can always get a couple minutes of rebounding and defense out of him. I did see him play a number of times with his EYBL team, and if he had focused on basketball, he'd be a really good basketball player. I don't know if he's an NBA player because of his size, but he'd give himself a chance. Nobody thought Dillon Brooks was an NBA player, and he's pretty good in the NBA. There are a lot of the same characteristics. He plays hard. He rebounds.
So, if it all works out, hopefully they're playing clear into January, and it'd be a little hard of an adjustment. But he could still give us defense and rebounding for a few minutes, especially if we have some injuries like we did a year ago. He could give us a few minutes.
Â
On if the team has a rim protector like Nate Bittle or N'Faly Dante:
Not like that. No, no. We don't have Chris Boucher, Jordan Bell, Dante. We don't have that type.
Taylor Bol-Bowen is probably our best. He's got to get a little more comfortable challenging more shots. I think we've got some guys that can challenge shots, but we don't have anybody who's going to go block 70 shots. That was a luxury that Nate gave us. Like I said, there's a lot of things negative about our game, but Nate Bittle is what's positive about our game. He stayed here. He could have gotten a lot more money putting his name in the portal, all that, and he stayed. He sprains his ankle in November. They tell me it's going to be five weeks. He fights his tail off, gets back in three to go on the road to UCLA. Now, he didn't have a good game, but just the fact that he worked his butt off to get back in three weeks. He sprains the other ankle against Nebraska, and they tell me this one's worse than the other one. "Going to be five weeks minimum, Coach." He comes back in three weeks to play on the road at Purdue and gives us a chance to win the game. So, like I said, there's a lot of things that aren't right, maybe, but if fans are looking for something that is right, a hometown guy stays because he wants to play for the University of Oregon. He fights his tail off to get back from two injuries, that is what's right.
Â
Â
Players Mentioned
F
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
C
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's Basketball
F
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballThursday, September 10
Thursday, April 09
Sunday, March 08
Sunday, March 08
