‘If it’s me, then get rid of me;’ Dana Altman airs out frustration on lack of fan support

When you’ve made it to five Sweet Sixteens, two Elite Eights, and one Final Four, you’ve got to deal with high expectations. When past accolades read like that in recent decades, then you have to deal with the fact that you’ve got little room for error going forward.

Dana Altman’s Ducks have never won fewer than 20 games. They’ve made the postseason — either NIT or NCAA Tournament — in 13 straight seasons. They’ve won the Pac-12 in four of the last nine seasons.

Those memories of March success have faded, though. After back-to-back years of losing in the NIT, fans have grown frustrated, and Altman has grown tired. His team almost pulled out a victory on Tuesday night against the Wisconsin Badgers in the quarterfinals, but in the end, a litany of issues that have been plaguing the Ducks all season long came back to bite them.

Poor free throw shooting, a lack of basketball IQ, and an inability to outwork the opponent. All of it was prevalent, and all of it was expected. You saw it. I saw it. The 3,300 fans inside Matthew Knight Arena saw it.

Altman knows that the team has to be better going forward, and he’s ready to buckle down and get to work, starting with himself. But he also wants the fans to be better. He knows his players work hard, but he doesn’t think that they are getting the support that they deserve.

Dana Altman isn’t someone who often makes headlines. The most controversial thing that he said this season was telling Juwan Howard and the Michigan Wolverines that they still owe Oregon a game after not following through on a home-and-home series that was agreed upon.

It’s not often that you’ll read a quote from the Ducks’ head coach that makes you do a double-take.

That changed on Tuesday night.

Maybe it was the fact that the season was officially over and he had the opportunity to reflect. Maybe it was the fact that 24 months of frustrating basketball had finally boiled over, and he was ready to talk about it.

Regardless of the reasoning, Altman let loose in the post-game press conference, and touched on an array of topics. He discussed the type of players that the Ducks need going forward, and they type of buy-in that is expected. He also offered a poignant criticism of the fans at Matthew Knight Arena, noting that he was disappointed in their attendance this year. Most notably, he said that if he was the reason that fans didn’t buy into this team, then he was happy to leave, with reminiscent thoughts of coaching junior college basketball, where players really wanted to play hard.

Normally after post-game interviews, we take a few quotes and turn them into a story. This one is different. Altman said too many things for just a story here or there. You need to read it all.

Here are the most notable quotes from Altman’s post-game presser on Tuesday:

Free Throw Struggles

Question: Is it safe to say that your guys will be focusing more on free throws going forward?