NCAA Tournament: Ranking the Final Four coaches
Quack, Quack, Quack
Born: June 16th, 1958 in Crete, Nebraska
College: Graduated from Southeast Community College in Fairbury, Nebraska in 1978 with a degree in Business Administration. He then got a degree in the same field from Eastern New Mexico University in 1980.
Coaching Record: 597-312 in 28 seasons.
Coaching Career: Altman started his coaching career as an assistant head coach at Western State Colorado University located in Gunnison, Colorado in 1980. After two seasons he returned to his alma mater in Fairbury, Nebraska and Coached at Southeast Community College for one year.
In 1983, Altman left Southeast Community College to become the head coach at Moberly Community College in Moberly, Missouri. Three seasons later, he took an assistant head coach job with Kansas State, his first Division I school.
Altman followed that up by taking his first Division I head coaching job at Marshall University in 1989. He was there only one season before moving back to Nebraska to become head coach at Creighton University. He coached the Blue Jays to 327 wins in 16 seasons.
In 2010, Altman made the jump from mid major, to major when he moved to Eugene, Oregon to become the head coach of the Oregon Ducks. He has been there the past seven seasons.
Coaching Honors: In his 28 seasons as a college head coach, Altman has won at least 20 games 19 times and has made the NCAA tournament 13 times.
He has been named conference Coach of the Year seven times and National Coach of the Year once by the College Insiders.com.
Altman has won five regular season championships, eight conference tournament championships, one CBI championship, and one NCAA Regional Championship.
Strength: Scoring. In the past five seasons, Oregon has ranked 38th in points scored nationally. In four of those seasons, they have ranked in the top 50, while ranking in the top 30 twice.
Unfortunately, they are not the most dominant team in the tournament, offensively speaking. They are averaging only 77 points per game in four tournament games. That is good for third among the four remaining teams. It is also almost a point less per game than in the regular season.
Weakness: Rebounding. The Ducks’ scoring has been important as they have not been great on the boards. In the past five seasons, Oregon has ranked 128th in the country in rebounding. They have never ranked in the top 50 and three times failed to crack the top 100.
They have seen a slight upward tick in their rebounding since the tournament started, averaging about a half rebound more per game. Additionally they have outrebounded all four of their opponents in the four tournament games.