Oregon has finally ended their coaching search

The longest running joke in college basketball may finally be over.

Almost two months after news first broke that Oregon was going to fire Ernie Kent, the Ducks have finally found a willing replacement.

According to Jeff Goodman, Oregon reached a deal with Creighton head coach Dana Altman (assuming he doesn't pull another Arkansas). Altman has been with the Bluejays for 16 seasons and led them to seven NCAA Tournaments between 1999 and 2007. Prior to this year's 18-16 campaign, he had a string of 11 consecutive seasons of 20 plus wins.

Dana Altman is headed to Oregon.
(photo credit: BlueXU)

This is a solid hire for the Ducks. Its not the big name that they had been searching for, but Oregon isn't a good enough job to pull a big name coach away from a good job. And by all accounts, Altman is one of the better coaches around. You aren't going to find many basketball minds that understand the "x's and o's" better than Altman.

But coaching isn't what Altman is going to need to worry about.

At a school like Creighton, you can win games and league titles with coaching. At a power conference school like Oregon, success lies in recruiting.

Altman's success in Eugene is going to be determined by how well he can recruit.

At Creighton, Altman was able to land kids from Chicago and Detroit that flew under the national radar. And at Creighton, that is all you need. The Missouri Valley isn't exactly known for putting out NBA caliber players.

But in the Pac-10, a league that had 21 players taken in the 2008 and 2009 NBA Drafts, Altman is going to need to start landing some blue-chippers. He can start by making a last ditch effort to bring in Portland natives Terrence Ross and Terrence Jones. It may be too little too late -- Ross alluded to the fact that he would be committing to Washington on an upcoming visit on his facebook page, and Jones heads to Kansas today (Sunday) for a visit at Kansas.

Oregon has already had three players announce their intention to transfer out due to the coaching change, but the news isn't all bad for Altman as Dwayne Polee, an athletic 6'7" small forward that was considering St. John's and Georgia (among others), has decided to hold off on a commitment until after he makes a visit to Oregon.

Oregon's coaching search took 37 days. They embarrassed themselves with the pursuit of coaches that had no interest in Phil Knight's Nike cash.

But the Ducks ended up with a pretty good hire in Dana Altman.