Oregon’s Dana Altman, Stanford’s Kyle Smith reflect on renewal of old Pac-12 rivalry in San Jose

SAN JOSE — Stanford and Oregon aren’t members of the Pac-12 Conference anymore.

But for one Saturday night in San Jose, the two longtime Pacific Coast rivals could play against each other and pretend. 

“It was just nice,” said Stanford coach Kyle Smith. “It was a Pac-12 game, an old throwback. We’d like to play some of those teams on the West Coast.”

Oregon, the No. 10 team in the country, was the superior squad, as they often were during the pair’s Pac-12 days. But different challenges are ahead for both teams.

Stanford has joined the Atlantic Coast Conference, and its next game will be a road conference matchup against Clemson on Jan. 1. Oregon, after a nonconference game against Weber State on Dec. 29, will host Illinois in conference play on Jan. 2.

“Things are so different this year,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “It’s going to be odd all year.”

Oregon will travel to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, California, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin and Washington for conference road games this season. Stanford will trek to South Carolina, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, Indiana and Kentucky.

“We’ll adjust,” Smith said. “Our guys are tough. We’ll go headfirst into this thing and see how it goes.”

Altman is a native Midwesterner, so he’s used to the cold climates Oregon will be greeted with on road trips this winter. He can’t say the same for all his players and assistant coaches.

So he’s taking some precautions.

“Well, I’m from Nebraska,” Altman said. “I spent 16 years at Creighton. But I don’t have a heavy coat, so I may have to get one. Fortunately, we’ve gone to the quarter zips all the time, no suits, which makes packing a lot easier. But we got all the fellas a heavy coat, so we need ‘em for the staff also.”

Stanford’s matchup with Oregon was a good opportunity for both longtime rivals to assess where they’re at ahead of the Christmas break. Stanford (9-3, 1-0 ACC), which lost 76-61, still has a ways to go to meet Smith’s expectations.

“Boy, a humbling game,” Smith said. “Oregon was the better team today. I thought they played really well. Sometimes you’ve got to give a hat tip.

“We came out, started well. We had familiarity with them. They’re going to show you a lot of different looks pressure-wise, and get you late in the shot clock. We caved into it a little bit. Their will was a little better. Their defensive will was better than our offensive execution. We did some good things. We had some guys that made some positive steps. But they were the better team today, and hopefully we grow from this and get better.”

Altman thought Oregon’s full-court pressure disrupted Stanford effectively for the majority of the contest.

“It took them out of their rhythm,” he said. “Watching their previous games, they were really a rhythm offensive team where they come down and start moving the ball. We were hoping that our press would take that rhythm away. I thought for the most part, it did a decent job of that. In their previous games, everything was too easy for them. We wanted to try to take them out of that rhythm a little bit.”

The Cardinal will have just over a week before their next game in Clemson, giving Smith some time to sort through potential improvements. 

“We went 3 for 17 from 3 in the first half,” Smith said. “You’re going to have to play really well in all facets to beat a top-10 team. That’s an important one, because they keep score by how many points you make. So 3 for 17 is not going to get it done against a top-10 team.

“You’re gonna have to play well in all areas to beat them right now. A month from now, I think we might be better. We get guys more experience. But they’re a pretty veteran group.”

Altman, who knows a thing or two about building a program, has faith that Smith will get there eventually.

“We’ve got a lot of respect for Stanford. Kyle will do a great job,” Altman said. “When they approached us with this game, we were looking for a good opponent. We were looking for a Power Five opponent, and the travel was easy. So it was a good game for us.”