Here's just a few fun little tidbids. Read into them as much, or as little, as you like.
At Creighton, Dana Altman has only coached against 1 current Pac-10 head coach, that being Arizona's Sean Miller. Creighton was 3-1 vs. Miller's Xavier squad.
The Tucson Citizen has some quotes from Miller at the time.
“They beat us up,” Miller said before Xavier ended the three-game losing streak with a 79-66 win on Dec. 5, 2007. “They hit us in the mouth, and I say that in a positive way.
“One of the reasons they beat us three years in a row is their style. They really force you to handle pressure and compete at a high level.”
Even though Miller is his only Pac-10 rival, Altman has coached against some other targets on our coaching search.
Mark Turgeon was the head coach of another Missouri Valley Conference member, Wichita State, from 2000-2007. Perhaps its not an overly fair contest, as Altman had the time to build Creighton up before Turgeon began. However, Turgeon was 71-55, in conference, during those years while Altman was 91-35. As you can guess, Altman had the upper hand in the head to head meetings, 12-4. Turgeon only finished ahead of Altman once in those 7 seasons, before parlaying it into the Texas A&M gig.
According to Fox Sports, Mark had this to say about the hire.
"He’s a great hire for Oregon,” Turgeon said. "He runs a great system that is disciplined, but very exciting. I’ve watched Dana do more with less better than any coach in the country. Dana and his family with fit perfectly into the community. It’s a great hire by Pat Kilkenny.”
Billy Donovan, often rumored to be linked to airplane drops full of money Phil Knight was supposedly going to give him for the Oregon job, has also played against Dana Altman. One of Altman's tournament wins was knocking off #5 seed Florida, in the ill-fated 12/5 matchup, in 2002. A clutch 3 pointer by Terrell Taylor sealed the deal in a classic March Madness finish.
Altman later lost to Florida in the 2008 NIT, so has a 1-1 record against Billy D.
In the final week of the search Dayton's Brian Gregory was also supposedly on the short list. Altman also played Gregory to a standstill, 2-2 in four meetings against the Flyers.
A couple other names we've heard come up during our search that Altman played against, at Creighton, and his record against them.
Mike Brey (Notre Dame) 1-0
Tad Boyle (N. Colorado) 1-0
Steve Alford (New Mexico) 1-1
