The Big Ten Tournament gets started at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska on Tuesday. The No. 4-ranked Oregon Ducks (41-13, 22-8 Big Ten) won the Big Ten regular season title and secured the No. 1 seed in their first Big Ten Tournament after sweeping Iowa on the road. They went into Iowa City knowing they needed to sweep the then-first-place Hawkeyes and get some help from Northwestern to lock up the top seed in the tournament. They did just that, outscoring Iowa 32-10 in a three-game sweep. Northwestern took a game from UCLA to allow the Ducks to claim the top spot. 

Now, they turn their eyes to Omaha.

The format of the Big Ten Tournament is a little funky. The 12 best teams in the conference are divided into four pools of three. The Ducks are in Pool A with No. 8-seeded Nebraska (28-27, 15-15 Big Ten) and the last team to qualify: No. 12 Michigan State (28-25, 13-17 Big Ten).

Pool B consists of No. 2 UCLA, No. 7 Michigan and No. 11 Illinois. Pool C is filled with No. 3 Iowa, No. 6 Indiana and No. 10 Rutgers. Pool D rounds out the field with No. 4 USC, No. 5 Washington and No. 9 Penn State.

Each team will play the other two teams in their pool across the four days (Tuesday-Friday) of pool play. Oregon will face No. 12 Michigan State on Thursday at 4:00 p.m. and No. 8 Nebraska the following night at the same time. 

The winner of each pool advances to the semifinal round on Saturday. Should Oregon survive Pool A, the Ducks will play the winner of Pool D on Saturday. 

Oregon took two of three from Michigan State in East Lansing during the first weekend of May. In fact, the last time the Ducks lost a game was to the Spartans on May 2. MSU ace Joseph Dzierwa dominated Oregon on a fateful Friday night as he pitched a complete-game shutout and limited the Ducks to just three hits. 

While Oregon responded to take Saturday’s contest 13-5 and held on for a tense 3-1 win on Sunday, Dzierwa’s performance surely still sticks in the mind of Oregon’s offense. The Ducks got the series win (one of nine they’d capture in Big Ten play) despite not playing their best ball for the majority of the season. Still, anything can happen in any given baseball game and that leaves Oregon vulnerable to another pitching gem from Dzierwa.

While it’s unclear if the Ducks will have to face Dzierwa or not (Michigan State has to play Nebraska first on Tuesday at 4 p.m.), they need to prepare like they are and make some adjustments if they’re going to beat him the second time around. 

Then there’s Nebraska, a team Oregon didn’t play in its 30-game Big Ten schedule. The Cornhuskers will surely have the home-field advantage in Omaha with their campus in Lincoln just 56 miles down the road.

Nebraska was an even 15-15 in conference play this season. The Cornhuskers won series over Rutgers, Northwestern, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan and Purdue, but fell to Washington, UCLA, USC and Iowa. 

Nebraska won six Big Ten series, but only two of those opponents made the Big Ten Tournament field. The four series that the Huskers lost came to the 2-5 seeds in the tournament. Essentially, they beat all the bad teams but fell to the top teams in the conference. 

Looking at that slate, it would be easy to call Nebraska a bottom feeder in the Big Ten, but the Huskers took a three-game series over Oregon State back in March. The Huskers seem like the epitome of a team that a good squad should beat, but could be dangerous if you catch them on a good day. 

Now, here’s where Oregon’s advantage comes in. As previously mentioned, only the winner of each pool will advance to the semifinal round. If a team goes 2-0 in their pool, they’d obviously win the pool, but if every team goes 1-1 in pool play, the top-seeded team in the pool would automatically advance. 

That means the Ducks really only need one win to advance to the semifinals, and they’ll have the knowledge of which game they have to win before it’s played. Nebraska and Michigan State will face off on Tuesday. The loser will not have a path to the semifinal the second, so, Oregon could lose to that team and have it not impact its tournament. 

The Ducks will only have to beat the winner of the Nebraska/Michigan State game to advance, but they have to win that game. Otherwise, that other team would be 2-0 and claim the Pool A spot in the semifinals. 

This gives Oregon a massive pitching advantage. The Ducks will be able to save their ace, Grayson Grinsell, for the game against the winner of the MSU/Nebraska game and treat the other game as a bullpen game. 

In any tournament, the margin of error is pretty low. Oregon’s hopes of advancing to the semifinals will rest solely on one game in Omaha. We’ll know just which game that is after Tuesday’s contest. But, the Ducks are riding a 10-game winning streak and have won 14 of their last 15, so they’re not a team anyone should want to face in Omaha. 

The Pool A winner will play in the first semifinal game at noon on Saturday. The winner of that game will advance to the Big Ten Championship Game on Sunday at noon. 

If everything goes as planned, Oregon could be three wins (four if it wins both pool games) away from another Big Ten accolade. 

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