Games are not played on paper, and for the Beavers, that’s a good thing. Oregon enters the game tied for first in the Pac-12, and Oregon State enters only one game ahead of last-place Washington State. Here is what the Ducks need to do to avoid becoming yet another upset victim in what has been a roller coaster year in college basketball.

Hit some shots — It sounds simple because it is. Oregon’s two losses at home this season came by a combined three points, with the Ducks allowing just 48 points both times. They were also both games that Oregon had a chance to win, but low field goal percentages — 36 percent against Colorado and 28 percent against Cal — ultimately doomed them. The good news for Oregon is that their most recent outing was one of their better offensive performances, with Johnathan Loyd finally having a breakout game at point guard.

Take care of the ball — The Ducks have had some ball control issues this year, even before Dominic Artis went out, and things haven’t gotten any better since then. In a game against an in-state rival trying to play the spoiler role, the Ducks can’t afford to give away free possessions, even if they’ve built a big lead. Oregon’s recent 11 point win over Stanford would have been much more convincing had it not been for a barrage of late-game turnovers leading to garbage-time points for the Cardinal.

Embrace the moment, but stay focused — With E.J. Singler and the rest of the Duck seniors playing at Matthew Knight for the last time, it’s certain to be an emotional night, especially for Singler, the lone four-year player on the team. The seniors should seize the opportunity to go out with a bang, but it’s important to remember that this game isn’t a finish line. The Ducks still have two-regular season games left after tonight, a conference tournament, and, more than likely, at least one NCAA Tournament game. As emotional a night as it’s sure to be for Singler, at the end of the day, it’s just another game.

You wouldn’t know it from walking outside, but spring is almost here.

Sure, Oregon winter will roll straight on through to July like it usually does, but, technically, spring exists. The only reminder of spring in Eugene may be George Horton and the No. 14 Ducks. Oregon is off to a 7-1 start with series wins over Hawaii and Loyola Marymount and a midweek victory over Portland — and the Ducks have gotten there playing their own brand of baseball.

They play an old-school, fundamental type of small ball that just isn’t done very much anymore; they don’t hit home runs because the ball doesn’t travel well in the Pacific Northwest air.

But they find ways to get on base, and they find ways to score once they get on. With a runner on first and less than two outs, you can pretty much pencil in “sac” on your score sheet before the next pitch is even thrown.

It isn’t the most exciting style of play to watch, but to fans of fundamental baseball, it’s a joy to watch. The Ducks scored six runs on just two hits in one of their wins against Loyola Marymount and scored three runs on as many hits in their win over Portland. It’s also a style of play that has worked for Horton in the past. The Ducks have made two postseason appearances in their modern era and were an out away from going to the College World Series last season.

It was in Tuesday’s win over Portland that center fielder Scott Heineman finished with quite the unusual stat line. Officially, he didn’t have an at-bat, but he was no doubt the offensive catalyst for the Ducks, having been involved in all three runs. He was hit twice, came around to score each time and then delivered on a sacrifice fly to cash in a run on his third-plate appearance. For the stat nerds, that’s 0-0, sac, RBI, 2R.

Not a bad night.

Meanwhile, Oregon is as deep as they’ve ever been in the bullpen. Jake Reed, Tommy Thorpe and Cole Irvin have proven a consistent weekend rotation. Christian Jones, easing himself back into action after Tommy John surgery sidelined him all of last year, has looked good in a handful of relief appearances and a short start on Tuesday night.

As opportunistic as the Ducks have been, though, they realize they need to improve their team batting performance a bit. If they can, it seems like this Oregon team can make another deep postseason run once the weather actually feels a little more spring-like.

Former backup quarterback Nate Costa will be returning to the Autzen Stadium sidelines in the fall to work as a graduate assistant for Mark Helfrich’s Ducks.

Costa has recently worked with Comcast Sportsnet Northwest in Portland and it was on-air for CSNW that he announced he would be returning.

His Oregon career was punctuated by injuries, causing him to take a year off in 2008 after entering the season as the presumed starting quarterback. His career was officially ended in 2010 when he re-injured his knee while playing late in one of the Ducks blowouts in Darron Thomas’s first year.

Former backup quarterback Nate Costa will be returning to the Autzen Stadium sidelines in the fall to work as a graduate assistant for Mark Helfrich’s Ducks.

Costa has recently worked with Comcast Sportsnet Northwest in Portland, and it was on-air for CSNW that he announced he’d be returning.

His Oregon career was punctuated by injuries, causing him to take a year off in 2008 after entering the season as the presumed starting quarterback.  His career was officially ended in 2010 when he re-injured his knee while playing late in one of the Ducks blowouts in Darron Thomas’s first year.

The Civil War hasn’t seemed like a fair fight on the gridiron, but it has been much more of an even tilt on the hardwood.  There’s only one senior Duck this year who has played at Oregon all four years, and in that time E.J. Singler and the Ducks have played quite evenly with Oregon State. In 2009 and 2010, the teams traded sweeps with Oregon winning both games in 2010. No home team has won a game since then though, with the most recent win going to Oregon in both teams’ conference opener this January.

Singler scored 13 points in the first Civil War at Matthew Knight Arena in 2010, but it was a game dominated by Jay-R Strowbridge, who scored a career-high 26 points on his birthday. It was also the last time a home team won a game in the Civil War series. The following year Oregon beat Oregon State on the road with then-senior Garrett Sim quieting the crowd in his last visit to Corvallis, but Oregon lost to the Beavers at Matthew Knight Arena later that season.

Today, it’s E.J. Singler making his last Civil War appearance. Singler has averaged 12 points a game in his seven Civil Wars, scoring 16 points against the Beavers on two occasions.

The Civil War tips off at 8:00 p.m. on ESPNU.

Numbers never lie, and the numbers would indicate that the George Horton got one hell of an outing from his pitching staff in the Ducks 3-1 over Portland.

Christian Jones got things started, making his first start since May of 2011 after recovering from Tommy John surgery. Jones was on a controlled start and threw just three innings, but fanned five and gave up just two hits. Jones said he wasn’t quite back to 100 percent, at least psychologically.

“I’ve got to get back to really letting the ball go,” Jones said. “It was cold and a little stiff tonight, so I was questioning it a little bit and I need to realize that it’s healthy and just let the ball go.”

Oregon then gave the ball to Jeff Gold, who returned from an injury of his own, albeit a much minor one. In his last outing, Gold was hit in the left ankle by a line drive and was forced to leave the Ducks sweep-clinching victory just one out short of recording a decision.

Gold made quick work of the first batter he faced, setting him down on strikes. The junior from Moraga, California  then struck out the next two batters to retire the side. By the time he was pulled before the start of the eighth inning, Gold had struck out a career-high seven batters in four innings of no-hit work.

“I had four strikes and Horton just called pitches well and I executed,” Gold said.

Garret Cleavinger took over for the eighth inning and faced the first batter of the ninth as well before Jimmie Sherfy took over in time to earn his third save of the season.

As a pitching staff, the Ducks held Portland to just one run on six hits but issued just two free passes, both on hit batsmen.

“Fifteen strikeouts and no walks, that’s a pretty good effort on the mound,” Horton said.

Offensively the Ducks weren’t as impressive, but they were opportunistic, scoring three times on just three hits.

In an effort typical of the small-ball brand of baseball Horton loves, Scott Heineman was the Ducks offensive MVP despite not registering an at-bat. The center-fielder walked and came around to score in the first inning, scored again after being hit by a pitch in the third inning and added an RBI on a sacrifice fly in the fifth.

“I was just battling at the plate,” Heineman said. “I got some opportunities on the basepaths to do something, it was a hard nose night.”

While they made use of what little opportunities they did have, the Ducks lack of offensive production is cause for concern. With the likes of Cal State Fullerton and Vanderbilt on the Ducks schedule for the next few weekends, the Ducks might not be as lucky with so few hits. Still, coach Horton says it’s a matter of when, not if, the Ducks will find their offense.

Oregon travels to California for a three-game set with Horton’s former team, Cal State Fullerton, this weekend.

Oregon wraps up its first homestand of 2013 this evening against Portland in the first of four meetings between the two teams.

Lefthander Christian Jones is set to make his first start of the season for the Ducks with Kody Watts on the mound for Portland. It will be Jones’ first start in 21 months after the southpaw missed all of last season recovering from an elbow injury.

The Pilots have stumbled out of the gates to a 2-6 record while Oregon has opened up at 6-1 with series wins against Hawaii and Loyola Marymount.

First pitch at PK Park is set for 6 p.m.

Oregon fell from 23rd to 24th in the Associated Press Top 25 after going 1-1 against the Bay Area schools last weekend at Matthew Knight Arena. Meanwhile, Arizona, the only other Pac-12 school in the Top 25, moved up one spot from 12th to 11th after sweeping the Washington schools.

The Ducks were ranked as high as 10th before Dominic Artis was injured but looked like they may fall out of the Top 25 after a last-second loss to Cal last Thursday. On Saturday, however, with Johnathan Loyd having something of a breakout game at point guard the Ducks looked at times like the same team that was once the number ten team in the country.

Oregon plays their final home game of the year this Thursday against Oregon State looking for the Civil War sweep.

Tommy Thorpe threw an absolute gem, holding Loyola Marymount to just four hits in seven shutout innings to earn his second win of the season as the Ducks beat LMU 6-1 to improve to 5-1 on the season.

“I felt pretty good,” Thorpe said. “But it wasn’t just me, it was my defense behind me. I owe them credit.”

Oregon scored its six runs on two three-run innings despite registering just two hits all game. Five different Ducks were hit by a pitch on Saturday, with Scott Heineman getting hit twice.

“You can commend out hitters for not jumping out of the way,” Horton said.

Horton said weather conditions may have played a role in Lions starter Trevor Megill’s control issues.

“If you noticed,” Horton said, “(LMU catcher Colton) Plaia was having a tough time even catching him, and Plaia can really receive. He was on a Team USA team that I had the privilege of being on, and he’s a tremendous receiver.”

Those weather conditions forced a short rain delay in the sixth inning, but it didn’t last long enough to knock Thorpe out of the game. The Ducks starter simply stayed warm by the dugout heater and trotted back out to finish the inning.

Thorpe would give up four hits and strike out six in his seven innings of work.

Oregon made it 3-0 in the third inning when a Megill hit three batters and walked another to make it 1-0 setting up Ryon Healy with a bases loaded opportunity. Healy had been the Ducks most productive player offensively in Hawaii but went 0-3 in the Ducks home opener Friday night. Facing a pitcher with control issues though, the Ducks first basemen had a good idea of what he might see.

“I went up there and I told coach Wasikowski, ‘I’m getting a fastball, and I’m gonna hit it.’ He was able to throw one in the strike zone, and I was able to put a good swing on it,’” said Healy.

Healy connected on the pitch to drive in two runners to put a crooked number on the board.

Oregon next scored in the seventh inning, again putting a three spot on the board by capitalizing on LMU’s mistakes. The Ducks scored two runs when sacrifice bunt attempts resulted in wild throws into right field and earned a third on a more conventional sacrifice from Scott Heineman.

The Ducks allowed their lone run in the eighth inning with Garret Cleavinger pitching. Cleavinger gave up just one hit but walked three, and, more damagingly, couldn’t connect with catcher Shaun Chase three times, allowing Tanner Donnels to move from first to third in the same at-bat.

“The wild pitches with Cleavinger we were calling the location on one side of the plate and they were the extreme opposite,” Horton said. “It wasn’t all just Shaun’s fault, but like I told him you still gotta catch the ball.”

Oregon will conclude the three game set with LMU tomorrow afternoon. Freshman Cole Irvin is slated to start for the Ducks.

Another year, another pair of losses to Cal.

Oregon had their chances to win but couldn’t score late, allowing California’s Justin Cobbs to sink a game winner with 0.7 seconds left, giving the team their 11th-straight win over the Ducks. It was the last chance for E.J. Singler to beat the Golden Bears (unless the both pair up in the Pac-12 Tournament).

“I haven’t won against them my whole time at Oregon,” Singler said. “I want them (in the Pac-12 Tournament) really bad.”

From the start, Oregon shot the ball abysmally. The Ducks missed their first seven shots from the field, but the Bears were shooting the ball almost as badly and could only open up a 6-0 lead before the Ducks started hitting shots.

With both teams shooting under 30 percent in the first half, Oregon forward Arsalan Kazemi was pulling down rebounds left and right, finishing with 14 boards in the first half alone. The senior from Iran came away at the end of the night with 18 rebounds and 11 points — including a pair of dunks — to pick up his seventh double-double of the year and the 52nd of his career.

“Last game against California, I told the coaches I let them down,” Kazemi said. “I came today all in, and it really hurts right now sitting here and not wining this game, but it is what it is. I just have to bring that effort and energy every night, not just one game.”

Despite the poor shooting performance, Oregon would lead by five points at halftime.

In the second half, however, the Ducks’ shooting woes would continue while the Bears found their stroke. Oregon hit just seven field goals in the second half, shooting just 25.9 percent — an even lower clip than their first-half output. Cal, meanwhile, caught fire in the second half, shooting 12-for-21 for 57.1 percent.

The second half also took on a more physical tone, highlighted by Kazemi taking an elbow to the nose while defending Tyrone Wallace. Wallace was given a flagrant foul on the play, which had temporarily knocked Kazemi out of the game. Ben Carter stepped in for the free throws and missed both.

“He was our best free-throw shooter percentage-wise on the bench,” Altman said. “I thought he’d go up there and knock them down.”

Oregon shot just 12 of 20 from the free throw line as a team. Even Singler and Kazemi, both normally strong at the line, each missed a pair of free throws.

Despite all that, Oregon held the lead for most of the game. Cal never led by more than two points in the second half, but Oregon was never able to pull away. The Ducks’ last field goal came with 2:16 left in the game, as Johnathan Loyd and Damyean Dotson missed later potential go-ahead shots in the final minute and a half.

“Eventually you just gotta get some shots,” Altman said. “We just didn’t do that.”