I’ll admit it. I don’t know what Creighton basketball was like before Dana Altman. He’s the only coach of Creighton men’s basketball I have ever known and seen in action. I haven’t lived in the Omaha area my whole life. The other guys at WBR are the historians contributing to my continued knowledge of Creighton basketball because they grew up with it. They went to school there. They know what it is like to bleed Creighton blue. I, on the other hand have really grown to love Creighton basketball over the past 12 years I have lived in the metro and my blood has a great shade of blue. I wouldn’t have started a blog a couple years ago or helped start White & Blue Review if I wasn’t a hardcore fan of Creighton sports.
For the past twelve seasons I have been in Omaha, I have heard mostly complementary things about the basketball program and a large amount of support. Yes, winning is probably a large contributing factor, but it is also because the people in Nebraska like their college sports. You see it with fans down the road 50 miles with football and you see it here in Omaha with Creighton basketball. But at the same time, that same group of people that supported you all these years can turn on you pretty quickly and when they do, it is brutal. Some chinks in the armor put all the boo-birds on watch, and a growing sentiment of criticism has risen throughout the Bluejay following after the 18-16 season we just endured.
There used to be a time that getting to the postseason was all that was needed to keep in good graces. It showed you had a successful team and a successful season, and Creighton had been to the NCAA Tournament about every other year and the NIT in the off years. However, since the 2006-07 season when Creighton last entered the NCAA Tournament, the program has not been back; they qualified for the NIT the following two seasons and then dropped down to the newly-created CIT this past season. When you have teams like Gonzaga, Butler and even Siena becoming staples in the NCAA Tournament postseason, the Bluejay fanbase expects more.
I don’t want anybody to misunderstand this. I love Dana Altman as a coach. I enjoyed his great pressing teams and I have always been a big fan of the three-ball. He is a quiet guy and tried not to outwardly show his excitement about things while on the sidelines, good or bad, a trait I think he held to so that everyone else didn’t get too caught up in what he thought. Heck, if I were the head coach, I’d probably be much the same way as I’m a really quiet person and do not have a dazzling personality, so in some respects I see him as being a lot like myself.
One thing I was taught when growing up and continue to learn today is that if things get tough, you get tougher. You may be the toughest person in the world, but if you get the right people telling you how bad you are and how tough it is, you may find yourself running away. Unfortunately with Coach Altman, the toughest situations he has been in professionally have resulted in him running for the exits.
In 1994, Altman was the head coach at Kansas State in his fourth season at the helm after Lon Kruger left. He had just won Big 8 coach of the year. Though the Wildcats somewhat struggled and Altman did not take them to the NCAA Tournament that season, he did take them to the NIT, where they advanced to the Final Four. There were some rumblings that particular boosters did not like the way the program was headed, and even rumors that some inside the Athletic Department were displeased. In the midst of this situation, Altman made the somewhat surprising move by taking the job at Creighton. While going from a well-respected high caliber school to Creighton was a shock to some, it could easily have been that Altman recognized that it was a good time to get out of town on his own before a mass mob of people helped him do it.
Fast forward 12 years later.
With a good friend in Bruce Rasmussen there to give him the support needed, Altman turned around a Creighton Men’s Basketball program that had suffered through years of struggle, years of not even sniffing the postseason, into a program that was vying each season for a Missouri Valley Conference championship and a chance to advance to postseason play. Names like Ryan Sears, Rodney Buford, Ben Walker, Kyle Korver, Nate Funk and Anthony Tolliver became stars that would carry their different squads and have a place somewhere in Creighton history.
Over those twelve seasons, there were different players that were ready to step in as needed to be the next go-to star. But by the end of the 2006-07 season, the cupboard was almost bare as Nate Funk, Anthony Tolliver, and Nick Porter all graduated and Issac Miles transferred (which in fairness, probably would have happened anyway even if Altman didn’t initially leave for Arkansas; he left after Altman came back). That was 72% of the team scoring, leaving the team with Dane Watts left as the one expected to try and be the next go-to guy. With Josh Dotzler struggling to return from his knee injury and not knowing how transfer guards Cavel Witter and Booker Woodfox would be, there didn’t seem to be the solid backcourt readily available that was there in the past.
That was the year Altman then jumped at the Arkansas job without getting a chance to really think it over, and it seemed like a similar jump when he left Kansas State to come to the Hilltop — both were moves that no one really expected. But after he found out what he was getting into at Arkansas and seeing that it would be an even more difficult situation, he quickly changed his mind and everyone in Omaha welcomed him back with open arms. He seemingly admitted that he made a mistake, and that he would finish his career in Omaha.
Finally we come to today. Creighton had one of their worst seasons since the first couple seasons of the Altman era and as the season wore on, people were coming out of the woodwork ready to criticize the direction Altman was taking the program. Arm chair coaches were trying to blame anyone and anything for the rapid drop in wins between these last two seasons. The situation had become tough again where it may take some uncomfortable changes to turn things around and get them back to the way they were. With Altman’s move to Oregon, it appears again that rather than change and attack the tough situation, he made the decision that it was easier to leave and take on a challenge that on paper appears to be an easier thing to do.
When Altman decided to take the Arkansas job, he said the hardest thing to handle was that he didn’t get a chance to talk to his players before news started coming out about him interviewing and taking the job. As he heads to Oregon, again he took the easy way out, as its reported he didn’t initially talk to the players before news started coming out about the Oregon position. It was reportedly up to Bruce Rasmussen to tell the players that he was leaving.
It is easy to say that we are all pretty tough, but in reality, aren’t we all a little thin skinned?