Before he headed out west and struck gold in Oregon, Dana Altman, a 54-year-old journeyman basketball coach from small-town Nebraska, put Creighton on the college basketball map.
Altman also left his imprint at Kansas State, where he was the head coach for the Wildcats from 1990-94, before bolting to his home state to turn Creighton into a Missouri Valley Conference stronghold, along with the Bluejays registering seven NCAA tournament appearances during his 18-year tenure.
It seems as though the Crete, Neb., native’s teams have always relished the underdog role. Perhaps it’s the single-most thing, the driving force, behind his winning ways.
In just his third season, he has the Ducks in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tourney — a program that has made only 11 tournament appearances all-time, including winning one national championship.
Oregon takes on top overall seed Louisville tonight at 6:15 on CBS in the Midwest Regional for the right to advance to the Elite Eight.
A quarter of a century ago, Altman was a part of one of the most memorable NCAA tournament runs in Kansas State history. Altman and Greg Grensing were top-flight assistants for current Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger at Kansas State from 1986-89.
Ironically, Grensing, as a first-year assistant at Middle Tennessee State this season, helped guide the Blue Raiders to their sixth NCAA tournament berth in school history, where they lost 67-54 to Saint Mary’s in an NCAA tournament play-in game on March 19.
Back in 1986, Kruger hired Altman, a head coach at Moberly Area Junior College in Moberly, Mo., at the time, and Altman just so happened to bring his top two players with him to Kansas State — power forward Charles Bledsoe and futuristic NBA All-Star shooting guard Mitch Richmond, who would turn out to be the most decorated two-year player in Kansas State history. His 1,327 points are the most by a K-State player in a two-year career.
Another standout on that team was sophomore point guard Steve Henson, a native of McPherson, who later played in the NBA and was on Kruger’s coaching staff at UNLV. He is currently an assistant for Kruger, a Silver Lake native, at Oklahoma.
Besides Richmond and Henson, Kansas City, Mo., native Will Scott was the Wildcats’ other 3-point threat. The frontline players on that team, along with Bledsoe, were Ron Meyer and Fred McCoy.
In 1987-88, Richmond’s senior season, Kansas State made a deep run into the Elite Eight. After finishing 22-8 during the regular season, the final season at storied Ahearn Field House in Manhattan, Kansas State beat bitter intrastate rival Kansas 69-54 in the semifinals of the Big Eight tournament at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Mo., before losing to Oklahoma 88-83 in the conference title game.
Kansas State won its first three NCAA tourney games in the Midwest Regional, beating none other than La Salle in an opening-round game in South Bend, Ind., 66-53. The Wildcats then defeated DePaul 66-58 in the second round to advance to the Sweet 16 at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich.
Kansas State then upset top-seeded Purdue 73-70, featuring future NBA forward Glenn “The Big Dog” Robinson, to advance to the Elite Eight against Kansas. The Wildcats upended a Boilermakers team that beat them 101-72 during the regular season in West Lafayette, Ind.
The Wildcats, who had beaten Kansas in two of three earlier meetings that season — including both teams winning regular-season games on the other team’s home floor — were denied a trip to the 1988 Final Four in Kansas City after losing to Danny Manning-led Kansas, 71-59, to finish 25-9 overall.
Larry Brown-coached Kansas beat the Billy Tubbs-coached Oklahoma Sooners 83-79 in the national championship game, the Jayhawks’ second NCAA crown in school history.
Altman left Kansas State in 1989 to become the head coach at Marshall, but returned to Manhattan a year later as head coach after Kruger left for Florida.
Altman’s 1992-93 K-State team was picked to finish last in the Big Eight, but the Wildcats won 11 games in the final minute that season, earned the school’s first top-25 ranking in five seasons, finished 19-11, reached the championship game of the Big Eight tourney and returned Kansas State to the NCAA tournament for the 21st time.
Altman’s peers honored him for the Big Eight Coach of the Year award in 1993, and he capped the season by upsetting No. 6 Kansas 74-67 in the semifinals of the conference tournament. The following season, he made it two in a row over KU when the Wildcats upset the No. 1-ranked Jayhawks in Lawrence in January 1994.

NOTES — Grensing, a native of Alta Vista, who attended Council Grove High School, won a national championship as a guard at Independence Community College in 1977 under Dan Wall. Grensing served 11 years as an assistant for Altman at Creighton, and also was an assistant on Kruger’s staff at UNLV. ... Longtime Purdue head basketball coach Gene Keady, now retired, who played football at Kansas State and coached against Kansas State in the Sweet 16 game in 1988, hails from Larned. ... Richmond was a six-time NBA All-Star and five-time All-NBA Team member. In 976 NBA games, Richmond averaged 21.0 points per game and 3.5 assists. Drafted by the Golden State Warriors in 1988, he played there until 1991, under Don Nelson, where he, Tim Hardaway and Chris Mullin were dubbed as Run TMC. ... Nicknamed “Rock,” because of his muscular build, the 6-5, 225-pound Richmond also played for the Sacramento Kings (1991-98), the Washington Wizards (1998-2001) and the Los Angeles Lakers (2001-02). He won an NBA championship ring with Kobe Bryant and the Lakers in his final season. ... Currently an NBA scout for Golden State, Richmond is one of 12 finalists for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., which will be announced on April 8. Induction ceremonies are set for Sept. 8. ... Richmond has the highest number of career NBA points (20,497) of any eligible retired player who has yet been elected to the hall.