With all of the success Dana Altman has enjoyed at Oregon, for one reason or another, going to Colorado hasn’t been one of those successes. Since they joined the conference back in 2011, Colorado is 7-1 against the Ducks in Boulder.
But going to play Utah in Salt Lake City has been a huge success. Oregon is 9-0 against the Utes on the road. Altman was asked about continuing the series with the Mountain schools after the Pac-12 dissolves. He says it’s something he would definitely like to continue. At the moment, though, nothing has been discussed.
“I haven’t talked to either coach about continuing our series,” Altman said on Wednesday, ahead of Oregon’s bout with Colorado. “We talked to Wayne (Tinkle) at Oregon State, but really that’s the only one. I mentioned it to Tommy Lloyd (Arizona) at one time, but I haven’t talked to any other coaches about extending the series. We are talking to a number of exempt tournaments for the next two, three, four years, trying to figure out exactly what tournaments we’re going to go into and minimizing some of our travel in the non-conference.”
Joining the Big Ten is going to play havoc with the travel schedule with most of those teams either in the Midwest or East Coast. Extended time on an airplane for athletes that big could eventually be detrimental as the season goes on. This is why one should expect Oregon to restrict their non-conference games either at home or at least in the vicinity of the West Coast.
“Colorado and Utah are teams that, down the road in the future, we’ll have discussions with and try to get some non-conference series with,” Altman said.
Oregon will make its last road trip to the Mountain schools as a Pac-12 member this week, starting with a game against Colorado on Thursday night.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3]