It’s no coincidence that in the two seasons right after former assistant men’s basketball coach Tony Stubblefield left to coach DePaul the Ducks missed the NCAA tournament.
Stubblefield was Altman’s right-hand man for 11 seasons and played a huge part in recruiting and developing players such as Tyler Dorsey, Jordan Bell, Chris Boucher and a whole host of other great players who have come to Eugene over the past decade.
Now Stubblefield is available once again as DePaul lets him go after two-plus seasons on the job. In preparation for this coming week’s games with the Arizona schools, Altman voiced his admiration for his former assistant and friend.
“I’ll tell you what, Tony Stubblefield is a good basketball coach. He’ll have 50 or 60 job offers this week. Everybody knows the DePaul situation, how tough it is, how underfunded they are,” he said. “And in that league (The Big East), you’ve got some teams that are very well funded in NIL and he was fighting an uphill battle from the go. And when they changed the rules on the NIL, he really was. So I know it’s not what he wanted. It’s not what the school wanted, but Tony Stubblefield is a good basketball coach.”
Those “50-60 job offers” Altman mentioned surely will include other head coaching jobs, but if Stubblefield ever wanted to return to Oregon, Altman would be the first one to welcome him back home.
“I’ve talked to him, you know, I sure hope that he’ll at least take a look at us.”
Altman says that nothing will happen until after the season, if it happens at all, but there is a hope that a reunion will take place.
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