From CBI to NIT to Sweet Sixteen, head coach Dana Altman has engineered a meteoric rise for Oregon men’s basketball.

On Saturday, Altman’s hard work was recognized when the Crete, Neb., native was named the 2013 Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year during an end-of-the-year awards banquet during Atlanta’s Final Four festivities.

The Ducks notched a 28-9 record this year, the program’s third under Altman, despite being picked to finish seventh in the conference’s media poll. Oregon played its best ball at the end of the season, racing to the Pac-12 title and into the NCAA Tournament as a 12 seed.

After upsetting both Oklahoma State and Saint Louis to reach the Sweet Sixteen, the Ducks lost to overall No. 1 seed Louisville. The Cardinals clinched a spot in the national championship Saturday night with a win over Wichita State.

Altman is also the first Oregon head coach to post three-straight 20-win seasons since legendary coach Howard Hobson led the “Tall Firs” to Oregon’s first and only national championship more than 70 years ago.

Oregon track and field faces its stiffest test of the season against the formidable Texas A&M. Here’s a closer look at how two of the nation’s best teams stack up against each other ahead of Saturday’s Pepsi Invitational at historic Hayward Field.

4 — Top four teams in the nation will compete — the No. 2 Oregon women, the No. 3 Texas A&M women, No. 1 Texas A&M men, and No. 4 Oregon men, according to the USTFCCCA’s latest poll

2 — Other schools competing: Washington and Washington State. The Huskies boast the nation’s No. 15 women’s team, while the Cougars return to the Pepsi Invitational after a 17-year absence.

10.30 — The meet record, in seconds, for the 100 meter dash. Texas A&M’s Ameer Webb enters the meet with the nation’s second-fastest time (10.14). Oregon’s De’Anthony Thomas will compete against him with a personal best of 10.31.

13.33 — Oregon sophomore Johnathan Cabral’s time in the 110m hurdles at last month’s Texas Relays, the fastest time in the country this year.

13.45 — Texas A&M junior Wayne Davis’s mark in the 110m hurdles, good for ninth-best this season. Davis is considered Cabral’s strongest competition.

The weather in Eugene is in full capricious spring mode. Sunshine gives way to torrents of rain,followed by heavy gusts of wind. Then, back to sunshine.

But Oregon’s track and field team will be ready to compete Saturday in the Pepsi Invitational regardless of the color of the sky. Fresh off recent successes at the Texas Relays, the Ducks’ men and women return to historic Hayward Field to compete against Texas A&M, Washington State and Washington in one of the nation’s most hotly anticipated meets of the year.

On paper, the competition is strong across the board. Both Oregon teams are ranked nationally in the top five — the women are No. 2; the men, No. 4 — and will face their stiffest competition of the year in the Aggies, who enter the meet with the nation’s top-ranked men’s squad and No. 3 women’s team. The Huskies’ women come in at No. 15 in the polls, announced by the USTFCCCA. Washington State rounds out the competing schools, returning to the Pepsi Invitational for the first time since 1997.

Oregon’s women, hunting for another national championship are led, in part, by decorated sprinter English Gardner and the rest of the Ducks’ top-tier relay team. In Texas, Gardner, with teammates Phyllis Francis, Chizoba Okodogbe and Jenna Prandini, finished third in the 4×100 in 43.93, the fourth fastest time in school history. The Ducks will be matched up against maybe the strongest part of the No. 3 women’s Aggie team — the nation’s top-ranked 4×100 squad.

Gardner will also tangle with A&M’s Kamaria Brown in the 200 meters. Brown’s time of 22.85 earlier this year currently leads the nation, but Gardner’s 22.82 career-best time did come at Hayward Field during last season’s Pac-12 Championships. The junior Francis is also expected to hold her own. She finished just after Gardner is last year’s conference title meet with a 23:03. 

For the men, it’s all eyes on the javelin throw.

Texas A&M senior Sam Humphreys returns to the scene of his greatest triumph last season, when he won the javelin throw at the U.S. Track and Field Trials last June at Hayward. Many thought Humphreys would qualify for Team USA, but his mark of 268 feet, 7 inches fell just five inches short of the required “A” standard. Instead, he’ll look to reestablish his dominance over Oregon’s Sam Crouser, who finished second to Humphreys in June to win silver.

And it won’t just be a two-pony race. A&M’s Devin Bogert is currently ranked sixth in the country in javelin, and No. 7 Joe Zimmerman is a dark horse for Washington. 

On the track, two-sport speedster De’Anthony Thomas could break multiple meet records. In his sophomore track debut at the Oregon Relays, Thomas registered three first-place finishes, anchoring the men’s blistering time of 40.35 in the 4×100 that broke a 21-year-old meet record. Thomas is also scheduled to run in the 100 meters, but he has his work cut out for him. A&M’s Ameer Webb has the nation’s second-best time in the event this year (10.14), far better than the Pepsi Invitational’s 100m record of 10.30.

The play was controversial even then.

Auburn Tigers running back Michael Dyer was wrapped up by Oregon defensive back Eddie Pleasant with less than three minutes left in the 2011 BCS National Championship game. With the score tied and a title on the line, Ducks defensive tackle Zac Clark held back from piling onto Dyer.

But, as replays would clearly show, Dyer’s knee never hit the turf and the running back righted his body and raced into field-goal range and BCS history.

Final score: Auburn 22, Oregon 19.

To reward his heroic efforts, Dyer was named the game’s offensive MVP. As upset as Oregon fans were, the replay proved conclusive — Dyer was never technically tackled. Like it or not, the play was fair.

But, according to a comprehensive piece written by Selena Roberts and posted Wednesday by Roopstigo, Dyer shouldn’t have even been on the field for the title game. He and at least eight of his teammates had been previously deemed academically ineligible, yet the school found a way to get him on the field.

The revelation is just the tip of the iceberg in Roberts’ bombshell story alleging Auburn personnel knowingly broke a slew of NCAA rules during the team’s title-winning season, including, but not limited to, the open payment of players, academic fraud and recruiting violations.

More importantly, if even a fraction of the report’s claims are true, the NCAA and BCS will have grounds to tear down Auburn’s football program and retroactively vacate the wins and accomplishments of one of its most popular champions.

In fact, while they’re at it, why don’t they just give Oregon the title it deserves?

***

USC has felt the NCAA’s sting before.

It took the improprieties of just one player, 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush, to bring the Trojans’ program to its knees. After the NCAA discovered Bush and his family had received more than $300,000 in housing, airline tickets and other benefits from aspiring sports agents, the Committee of Infractions — the organization’s judge, jury and executioner — found USC’s football program responsible for not doing everything in its power to monitor Bush. The resulting punishments consisted of a two-year bowl ban, the suspension of 30 scholarships and 13 vacated wins, including a national championship.

It was the first vacated NCAA football championship since 1989, when Mississippi College was found to have given out twice the number of academic scholarships it was allowed.

“This case is a window onto the landscape of elite college athletics,” the committee wrote in its report. “And certain individuals who, in the course of their relationships, disregard NCAA rules and regulations.”

Such stern words sound awfully applicable when reading Roberts’ piece, titled “Auburn’s Tainted Title: Victims, Violations and Vendettas for Glory.” In it, Roberts details the tribulations of Mike McNeil, a former stud defensive back for the Tigers. Two months after posting a team-high 14 tackles in Auburn’s title win over Oregon, McNeil found himself in a holding cell with three teammates, arrested and later tried for armed robbery.

Now, two years later, the story suggests, it’s the program that has let its players down nearly every step of the way.

McNeil recalls his then-defensive coordinator Will Muschamp giving him $400 cash after a tough practice in 2007. Muschamp now coaches the Florida Gators.

There are also alleged recruiting violations, including allegations the team spent more than 10 times the legal amount of money on high-profile student-athlete recruiters.

Auburn Tigers running back Michael Dyer is famously not tackled by Oregon defensive back Eddie Pleasant during the 2010 BCS Championship Game. According to a report by Roopstigo, Dyer, the game’s offensive MVP, was not academically eligible for the game.

Then, of course, comes the academic fraud: at least nine players were deemed ineligible to compete against Oregon in the national championship.

“We thought we would be without Mike Dyer because he said he was one of them, but Auburn found a way to make those dudes eligible,” said Mike Blanc, who played defensive tackle for Auburn in 2010.

McNeil also gives one specific example of how his F in a computer science class was changed to a C after talking to athletic department counselors.

***

It’s not the first time the 2010 Tigers have danced around scandal. Starting quarterback Cam Newton’s father Cecil worked with a Mississippi State booster to try and secure a pay-for-play deal between his son and the Bulldogs. The NCAA’s Academic and Membership Affairs staff even declared Newton ineligible on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010.

Auburn argued Newton had no knowledge of the situation and the Heisman winner was reinstated the next day, just three days before the SEC championship game.

Following the Newton case, the NCAA released a statement both condescending and vague:

“The NCAA enforcement staff is committed to a fair and thorough investigative process. As such, any allegations of major rules violations must meet a burden of proof, which is a higher standard than rampant public speculation online and in the media. The allegations must be based on credible and persuasive information and includes a good-faith belief that the Committee on Infractions could make a finding. As with any case, should the enforcement staff become aware of additional credible information, it will review the information to determine whether further investigation is warranted.”

Not long after, four former Tigers went public with allegations that Auburn paid them cash while being recruited or playing for the team. Head coach Gene Chizik called the claims “pure garbage.”

“As I’ve said many times, I feel very confident about the way we run this program,” Chizik said the following October. “I’ve said many times that we haven’t done anything wrong, so quite frankly I moved on a long time ago.”

Several Ducks enjoyed an extended bath in the media spotlight during Oregon’s run to the Sweet 16. But one Duck’s past hung over him, just as he was playing on the biggest stage in his life.

Arsalan Kazemi entered what was ultimately the last game of his college career averaging 9.3 points and 9.9 rebounds per game, news enough for a program that hadn’t seen a player average double-digit rebounds in a season since the 20th century.

But the mainstream media’s story on Kazemi stretched further back to Rice University, where allegations had surfaced that the 6-foot-7 Iranian was subjected to “insulting and discriminating remarks” by Owls’ athletic director Rick Greenspan, according to Sports Illustrated.

Kazemi’s path to Oregon was always shrouded in a bit of intrigue. After becoming a double-double machine and earning all-conference honors at Rice, Kazemi joined at least five other players in a mass exodus from the program.

Only after filing a hardship waiver with the NCAA was Kazemi allowed to join Oregon’s basketball team and compete in his senior season.

Documents obtained by SI.com detailed Greenspan’s alleged abusive remarks that extended beyond Kazemi to two fellow Middle Eastern players, including USC transfer Omar Oraby and an assistant coach.

Among them included slights at Kazemi’s ethnicity and Muslim faith.

“In Kazemi’s waiver request, he claimed that Greenspan told (Marco) Marcos to ‘recruit more terrorists’ on multiple occasions,” reported SI.com’s Thayer Evans. “(Kazemi) also alleged that when talking in Arabic to another player that Greenspan asked if they were having an ‘Al-Qaeda meeting.’”

Greenspan categorically denied all of Kazemi’s allegations.

SI.com further reported Greenspan directed airport security to specifically search the carry-on bags of three players with Middle Eastern heritage. “All you need is a backpack and you are ready to bomb the school,” Greenspan also allegedly told an assistant with similar heritage.

For his part, Kazemi refused to discuss the issue during the NCAA Tournament.

Rice released a statement last year, when allegations of racist behavior first surfaced, that also denied the report.

“As a matter of policy,” the statement read, “Rice University avoids commenting on personnel matters or matters before the NCAA. However, allegations involving two former men’s basketball players require a brief response.

“In September 2012, two student-athletes received permission from Rice to transfer to the University of Southern California and the University of Oregon. Both schools have sought a waiver of the NCAA’s one-year residency rule so that the students can compete in the upcoming basketball season. Unfortunately, USC and Oregon have included in those waiver applications meritless allegations of discrimination, including some previously asserted by a former assistant basketball coach whose contract was not renewed last spring.

“Rice head basketball Coach Ben Braun and Athletics Director Rick Greenspan strongly deny those allegations. Rice University has a strong institutional commitment to tolerance and diversity, and both Braun and Greenspan share those values and provide services and programs that accommodate the needs of a diverse student-athlete population.”

In his final collegiate game against Louisville, Kazemi recorded a double-double, putting in 11 points with 12 rebounds. Rice finished the year 5-26, with a 1-15 record in Conference USA.

Sports journalists don’t often admit when they’re wrong.

In fact, by the time many sports media “experts” are proven incorrect, the narrative has shifted so much that many fans don’t even remember their predictions in the first place. But twice last year — once in September and again in October — I declared Dana Altman on the hot seat as a coach facing monumental expectations by a fanbase that expected an immediate winner.

Even at the time, it was a hard stance to take. After steady improvement in his first two years, it was easy to see a clear path for Altman and his team’s future success, especially after his recruiting started to get a solid footing.

But, I wrote, “Mediocrity isn’t tolerated in the new world order of Rose Bowls and #nationalbrands, and fair or not, if Altman doesn’t get the Ducks to the NCAA tournament this year, it will be a massive disappointment.”

Mr. Altman, I’m sorry I doubted you.

Led by outgoing seniors E.J. Singler and Arsalan Kazemi, Oregon recovered from two head-scratching losses to Colorado and Utah to race through the conference tournament in Las Vegas and into the NCAA tournament. But, as you know, the No. 12-seeded Ducks didn’t stop there. Back-to-back wins led Oregon to a Sweet 16 showdown with No. 1-seeded Louisville, against whom — old news — the Ducks’ season ended.

But even that loss can be considered out of Oregon’s hands. Last weekend, Louisville pounded Duke to clinch a Final Four spot despite suffering the worst injury I’ve seen live in sports. Kevin Ware’s revolting broken leg that left glints of white bone peeking out from the sophomore’s shin has seemingly rallied the whole country behind the Cardinals. There’s no shame in Oregon losing to a team of that caliber.

In fact, it’s a learning experience. Entering the Sweet 16, Altman was joined in the Midwest by Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and Louisville’s Rick Pitino. Between the three of them? Twenty-four Final Four appearances and six championships. That’s not bad company for Altman, whose current claim to fame is as the winningest coach in the history of Creighton, a team that hasn’t advanced past the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament since 1942.

Altman’s winning will beget more winning, both individually for himself and for his team. As the first Oregon coach to secure three-straight 20-plus win seasons since the 1930s, the Nebraska native earned Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors. Recently, Altman was also named one of 10 contenders for the 2013 John McLendon National Coach of the Year award, according to CollegeInsider.com.

As a coach this year, Altman made few glaring miscalculations. When freshman guard Dominic Artis went down, Altman invested faith in back-up Johnathan Loyd. Despite a rough start to his era as a starter, Loyd repaid the coach with clutch play throughout the Pac-12 tournament, dropping 19 points in the title-winning victory over UCLA. In fact, the one-two punch of Artis and Loyd made almost everyone forget that across the country former Duck and five-star recruit Jabari Brown averaged more than 13 points per game for Missouri.

More than anything else, Altman gave fans little to doubt in his confidence of his team. The Pit Crew bought into his mottos — “BEND YOUR KNEES” — and fostered a sense of resolution eerily familiar to the blind confidence fans held in Oregon football.

Call it swagger if you want. Whatever it was, it came from Altman.

And I’ll be the first to admit it.

With senior Jessica Moore simply padding her stats during her last season as arguably the best pitcher in Oregon softball history, the Ducks may have already found their next dominant ace-in-waiting.

It was announced Monday that freshman Cheridan Hawkins beat out five other Pac-12 pitchers — including Arizona State’s Team USA starter Dallas Escobedo — to win her second-straight conference pitcher of the week honor. Hawkins’ win is her third in five weeks, more than any other pitcher this season.

The No. 10 Ducks (28-5, 5-1 Pac-12) are off to their best start in conference history under fourth-year head coach Mike White, and Hawkins’ 12-2 record has a lot to do with that. Over the course of last weekend’s series win over Washington, the Anderson, Calif., native authored a pair of wins: a 10-3 blowout against No. 15 Stanford and a 4-2 grinder against No. 16 Washington. Hawkins registered 11 combined strikeouts to just two walks. The freshman has also won eight of her last nine games and leads the team with a 1.29 ERA. Moore clocks in at second with 1.38 over her 17 starts. Despite pitching 15 more innings than the freshman, Hawkins’ 120 Ks are 46 more than Moore has recorded this year.

Granted, she had help from Oregon’s hot bats. Junior Kailee Cuico was named the conference’s overall player of the week — her first such distinction — giving Oregon a Pac-12 sweep during the week, ending April 1. Despite being officially labeled a “utility player,” Cuico might better be called a home-run machine. The Carson, Calif., native jacked three over the wall during Oregon’s four games, moving into ninth place all-time on the Ducks’ total home run mark with 29.

Cuico continues to set the pace for the Ducks’ strong offense this season, leading the team in two-plus RBI games (12), RBIs (34) and home runs (10).

Another Duck having a great season so far is Janie Takeda. The 5-foot-7 sophomore outfielder leads the team with 16 stolen bases on 18 attempts and has struck out only six times on a team-leading 110 at-bats. Takeda has started every game this season and also leads the team with 50 hits.

Oregon hosts a three-game series with Utah starting with a double-header April 2. After the tilts with the Utes, the Ducks travel on the road to Berkeley, where No. 5 California awaits them.

No first-year jitters here.

Oregon’s frosh playoff hero Damyean Dotson was honored Monday by being named to the 2013 Kyle Macy Freshman All-America team after averaging 16.0 points in the Ducks’ postseason run to the Sweet Sixteen. The Houston native finished second on the team behind senior E.J. Singler in both minutes played (27.9) and points per game (11.4) over the course of the season.

Per the athletic department’s press release, Dotson is now a candidate for the Kyle Macy Award, presented annually to the nation’s best frosh player. The award will be announced April 5.

His coach also has an opportunity to add some hardware to his trophy case. After winning the conference’s Coach of the Year award earlier this season, head coach Dana Altman has been named a candidate for the 2013 John McLendon National Coach of the Year award.

Altman, a Crete, Nebraska native, is no stranger to COY awards — he has already won such honors in four different conferences, including this year’s Pac-12 iteration.

The release continues:

Altman, who just completed his third year at the helm of the men’s basketball program in Eugene, guided the Ducks to a 28-9 overall mark – the fourth-most wins in a single season in UO history. The first Oregon head coach to post three straight 20-win seasons since the legendary Howard Hobson led the “Tall Firs” to four straight campaigns from 1935-39, Altman’s 2012-13 team became just the sixth UO squad to reach an NCAA Regional Semifinal.

Oregon head coach Dana Altman’s pre-Oregon days — While Finals Week stands between students and spring break, Oregon men’s basketball is the only varsity sport with a game scheduled before the weekend. The down time gave The Oregonian’s Adam Jude the opportunity to explore head coach Dana Altman’s days before the Ducks.

The all-time winningest coach in Creighton’s history succeeds on consistency.

“I think that goes back to where he grew up, in a small town in Nebraska,” explains Oregon assistant Kevin McKenna in the article. “He’s just a consistent worker. Day in day out you know what you’re going to get from him. There’s not too many times where’s he come in and just blown off a day, and I’ve been with him a long time. He just has a consistent, grind-it-out mentality.”

Tall Firs video will fascinate you, then make you yawn — The University of Oregon uploaded it last July, but recently tweeted again by the Wall Street Journal’s Rachel Bachmann was this YouTube video of Oregon’s 1939 National Champions, the “Tall Firs.”

It serves to offer a few reminders. First, the game was slow. While the footage likely runs slower than the players were actually moving, watching a player stand just past half court holding the ball and looking around is jarring, especially in the age of LeBron and Blake Griffin.

But it also gives a renewed sense of appreciation in the developing front-court game. With no three-point line and a much narrower lane, a greater value was placed on lofty jump hooks and post-up moves. It also shows how much courage a player had to have to jack up a shot behind what would be the three-point line today.

“Black Mamba” earns weekly honors — We covered his remarkable day at the Oregon Preview already, but sophomore De’Anthony Thomas’ three-event sweep last weekend has earned him the Pac-12 Conference’s Men’s Track Athlete of the Week honors.

The 40.35 time he and teammates set in the 4×100 relay broke a meet record more than 20 years old. Fellow football players B.J. Kelley and Dior Mathis helped him, as did sophomore sprinter Arthur Delaney. Thomas’ 10.31 time in the 100m is the third-best mark in the nation so far this season.

Redshirt freshman Greg Skipper also earned recognition, this time as the conference’s Men’s Field Athlete of the Week. The Oregon City, Ore., native won the hammer throw at the Oregon Preview with a mark of 210-10/64.26 meters, another mark good for third in the country.

His throw answered questions about his health, as well: In his first meet back after an injury derailed his season last year, his winning toss broke his personal best by six feet.

Ah, March Madness.

That magical time of year where fans who couldn’t find Creighton or Valparaiso on a map cram their still-perfect brackets down your throat. The only thing more frustrating than everyone flooding your Facebook feeds with their picks is the inevitable moment when your girlfriend sweeps the Midwest region by picking her favorite colors.

Facebook has broken into the Madness with a series of maps carving up the nation by fandom. We showed you something similar during football season, but this one is grounded in empirical data. Loyalties are painted across the country in “likes,” and social-media giant analyzes the bracket at the conference, regional and rivalry levels.

Thanks to their increasing presence as a national brand, Oregon has arguably the widest appeal after Duke. That’s fair, considering the Blue Devils’ perennial excellence and massive fan base. It’s cool to note the Creighton fans in Oregon — head coach Dana Altman is Creighton’s all-time winningest head coach with 327 wins for the Bluejays.

Student tickets on sale for Ducks action. The athletic department has released information for those students looking to watch Oregon compete in person. Per the release:

Oregon will receive a limited amount of tickets for University of Oregon students to purchase. Tickets will cost $75/ea. session. The game ticket for Thursday will also be valid for the Saint Louis vs. New Mexico State game. Tickets will not be valid for the UNLV vs. Cal or Syracuse vs. Montana games. Oregon will receive tickets to purchase for the March 23rd games only if the Ducks advance to the 3rd round.  

Student tickets will be available for purchase beginning at 6pm on Monday, March 18th. You must log into your student account to purchase tickets, this is the only way to purchase tickets. Tickets will be available for pick up at Oregon will call windows at HP Pavilion in San Jose. Tickets can only be picked up by the student who purchased the tickets.