Dana Altman shares story about Will Richardson’s triple-double

With Oregon holding a large lead late against Nevada on Saturday, coach Dan Altman began to sub his starters out, but Will Richardson didn’t want to leave the court. Unbeknownst to Altman, Richardson was on the verge of a triple-double, needing just one more rebound to seal it.

With just 26 seconds to spare, Richardson finally grabbed it, corralling a 3-point miss from the Wolfpack to record his 10th board. He finished the game with 19 points (7-of-12 FGs, 4-of-7 3-pt), 11 assists and 10 rebounds as Oregon won 78-65.

In his postgame press conference, Altman explained that he didn’t even know Richardson was close to a triple-double, but realized it based on the crowd reaction from his 10th rebound.

“I didn’t even know he was going,” the coach said. “He hit the 3 and I was gonna take him out and he goes, ‘Nah, coach. I want to finish the game.’ I go, ‘All right. You’re running the show anyway. Go ahead.’ But I didn’t know that he needed one rebound to get it. …When everybody started cheering, I kind of figured. I kind of turned around, so I didn’t know ’til then.”

Will Richardson’s 11 assists were a career high, and he became just the fourth player in the history of Oregon basketball to record a triple-double. More than that, he is the first player to do so since Luke Jackson in 2002.

Saturday marked the fourth time in the past five games that Richardson played all 40 minutes without being subbed out. With the Ducks backcourt dealing with several injuries at this point in the year, they are likely to continue to lean heavily on him for the time being.

So far this season, Richardson is averaging 14.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 5.8 assists. He will hope to keep riding the momentum of his triple-double when Oregon takes on UC-Irvine at 6 p.m. PT on Wednesday.