After a poorly handled firing and search, Oregon finally has their man: Dana Altman of Creighton. He is a solid coach, but probably not the home run they were hoping for, particularly given the amount of money Oregon has to throw around.
However, part of the reason why they got turned down so much, aside from the general impression of disarray (not having an A.D. doesn't help), is because Oregon is not really seen as a great basketball program. Altman built a solid program at Creighton, a Jesuit school in Omaha, and perhaps the thinking is that if you can do it there, you should be able to do it on the West Coast and at a major state university.
He gets his first test almost immediately: local talents Terrence Ross and Terrence Jones plan to announce soon, and if he could manage to persuade him to stay, that would be a huge boost. He's already wrangled a visit from Dwayne Polee and so still has the potential to pull together a nice recruiting class at the last minute.
They're also getting a new arena, which is too bad, because the old one is unbelievably great, on par with Allen or Cameron.
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