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Oregon men's basketball assistant Armon Gates departs to join Oklahoma staff

Jarrid Denneyby: Jarrid Denney04/09/23jarrid_denney
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(Photo by Brian Murphy/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

For the third offseason in a row, Dana Altman will need to replace one of his assistant coaches.

On Saturday, news broke that Oregon assistant Armon Gates has accepted an assistant position on Porter Moser’s staff at Oklahoma. Gates and Moser will reunite after spending the 2015 and 2016 seasons together at Loyola Chicago.

Jon Rothstein first reported Gates’ departure from Oregon.

Last July, Gates joined Altman’s staff after previously working on Fred Hoiberg’s Nebraska staff.

His hire came several months after the Ducks had also added assistant coach Chuck Martin to Altman’s staff.

The Ducks are coming off an underwhelming 21-15 finish that resulted in a second consecutive trip to the NIT.

Following their season-ending loss to Wisconsin on March 21, Altman provided a scathing critique of the Oregon program in his postgame press conference.

“We’re gonna evaluate all the guys individually,” Altman said. “We’ve gotta have guys who wanna be here. We’ve gotta make some changes. We’re not good enough. Either we’re not coaching good enough or the players aren’t good enough. We’re just not good enough. We’ve gotta get better. If that means changing personnel if that means getting in the gym more. … We’re just not good enough.

“So, I’ve gotta start with me. I’m not good enough. Then we go right down the list. But, 21-15, that’s not good enough. So, we’re gonna get better. I’ve gotta do a better job. We’re gonna get after players. If they’re gonna stay here, they’re gonna work their ass off. If they don’t, then we’ve gotta find somebody who will.”

Thus far this offseason, three Oregon players have entered the transfer portal — forward Lök Wur, Center Kel’el Ware, and guard Tyrone Williams.

Transfer portal background information

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.

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