Everybody talked about UCLA superstar Shabazz Muhammad’s homecoming.

But it was another Vegas native, Oregon’s Johnathan Loyd, who stole the show and led his team to a win in the Pac-12 Tournament final.

Loyd was the subject of much criticism when he was forced to take over for Dominic Artis but he came into his own in the last few games of the season and in the Ducks’ first two Pac-12 tournament games.

The eventual tournament MVP was a big part of Oregon’s offensive success in the first half — once the men overcame a sluggish start, that is — and hit clutch shot after clutch shot, including a late layup that added an exclamation point to the championship-clinching win. He finished with 19 points on 8-of-14 shooting — all while coming off the bench.

He also had a pair of critical three pointers in the first half. After a sloppy, turnover-filled start saw the Ducks down 12-4 early on, Loyd followed up two straight makes from Carlos Emory with a three pointer of his own to cut the UCLA lead to one and force Bruins head coach Ben Howland to take a timeout. Less than two minutes later with Oregon down just one, Loyd came up with a steal that set up Emory for a dunk. When Emory couldn’t convert, the Ducks scrapped for the rebound and Loyd buried another three to get the lead.

UCLA would answer right back and tie it but another jumper pushed the Ducks ahead to 20-18, a lead they wouldn’t relinquish for the rest of the night.

The win gives Oregon — already previously projected to receive an invite — an automatic bid to the NCAA championship tournament for the first time since 2007. It’s Oregon’s third-straight post-season appearance in just three years of the Dana Altman era after a CBI title in 2011 and a deep run into the NIT in 2012.

More importantly, the Ducks’ three wins in Sin City should go a long way toward making the selection committee forget about Oregon tripping across the finish line of the regular season, losing two brutal games to Colorado and Utah.

Oregon’s conference title is also a poetic end to a storybook season: When the Ducks stunned the Wildcats early in the season, a straight-faced E.J. Singler said after the game, “It’s not a high point — we got a lot of season left, and we got some goals we want to accomplish.”

When asked to elaborate, Singler stated the goal plainly: “Win the Pac-12.”

In his first season as sole head coach of the Oregon women’s cross country team, Robert Johnson led the Ducks to a national championship.

Now, his hard work has been once again recognized by the USTFCCCA.

Johnson was named Women’s National Coach of the Year on Thursday, retaining the same title he won in 2012 and 2011 as associate head coach. The threepeat is a first for the USTFCCCA. Arizona State’s Greg Kraft won the award in back-to-back seasons in 2007 and 2008, a feat Johnson matched when he won the award last season.

It’s the fourth-straight year the award has gone to an Oregon head coach. USTFCCCA Hall of Famer and track legend Vin Lananna won the award in 2010 before splitting coaching duties with Johnson.

The Oregon women won the NCAA Indoor team title, their fourth-straight, last weekend. It was the fourth-straight title for the Ducks, matching Louisiana State’s storied run from 1993-1997.

Seventeen Ducks earned USTFCCCA first-team All-American honors this season, more than any other school in the nation.

Here’s a list of the award’s winners, as supplied by the USTFCCCA.org.

Recent Winners:
2013: Robert Johnson, Oregon
2012: Robert Johnson, Oregon
2011: Robert Johnson, Oregon
2010: Vin Lananna, Oregon
2009: J.J. Clark, Tennessee
2008: Greg Kraft, Arizona State
2007: Greg Kraft, Arizona State  

Game One. Oregon softball wasted no time establishing dominance in its 10-0 home-opening win over New Mexico on Wednesday, pairing senior ace Jessica Moore with a four-run jolt in the first that proved to be enough.

Moore (12-3) allowed just one hit and tallied four strikeouts and got immediate offensive teammates who scored four in the first despite leaving the bases loaded.

Things remained quiet until the fifth, when New Mexico starting pitcher Kaela DeBroeck gave up a run of doubles by Samantha Pappas and Alexa Peterson helped extend the lead to seven in the fifth.

In the sixth, sophomore center fielder Janie Takeda ended the ball game with a walk-off home run, blasting the ball over the right field wall and ending the game early on the mercy rule.

Howe Field has enjoyed a bit of a renovation while the team has been across the country competing in national tournaments. New bleachers along the left-field line offer fans a better view of the field, and a custom windscreen is expected to be installed by the next series Oregon hosts — a three-game tilt with Stanford starting March 23.

Turning point. This one was over almost before it began. With Moore on the mound, Oregon needed just the first inning to put up the runs it needed.

Game Two. First-home-game jitters? Not for Cheridan Hawkins.

Oregon immediately faced the Lobos again, this time with the freshman lefty on the bump, and secured its second win of the day, 4-0.

Hawkins has been a revelation in her first year, entering the game with a team-high 82 strikeouts. She added to that mark with 13 against New Mexico, striking out the full side three times in her first outing at Oregon’s Howe Field. Her 13 Ks is her second-best of the season, behind her program record-tying 15 strikeouts against Boston College earlier this month.

Oregon got its offensive burst in the fourth inning behind a two-run double, backed by Janelle Lindvall’s base-hit RBI.

On the horizon. The win gives Oregon (23-4) an early perfect mark at home before Pac-12 play begins March 23 against Stanford. The Ducks will host the Cardinal for a three-game series before traveling to Seattle to face Washington.

Oregon women’s track and field came one step closer to achieving the rare Triple Crown on Saturday, winning a record-tying fourth straight NCAA Indoor Track and Field national title at the Randal Tyson Center in Fayetteville, Ark.

The win came courtesy a dominant performance in the 4×400 relay. The team of English Gardner, Chizoba Okodogbe, Laura Roesler and Phyllis Francis set a program record with a 3:30.22 mark, the best in the field. Francis’ anchor leg time of 51.42 was the best on the team, and her strong finish gave the Ducks their second 4×400 win in four years.

“All we could do today was control Oregon,” head coach Robert Johnson told goducks.com. “We were the captain of our own fate. A tip of the hat to the way all of our Ducks not only came out and competed today, but also supported and cheered each other on. This was an outstanding team effort.”

Oregon’s final score of 56 edged Kansas (44) and Louisiana State (43) with Arkansas finishing in fourth with 42.5.

“We fought for every point today,” senior Becca Friday said. “We stuck together all the way through the 4×4.”

Friday also made a solid contribution to the team. The distance runner rallied from ninth place to sixth down the stretch of the final lap, tallying three team points with a time of 4:39.23.

Behind her, senior middle distance runner Anne Kesselring finished tenth. Her 4:50.77 finish was far short of her indoor personal best — a program record 4:32.61 she clocked at the Husky Classic as a junior — but the Ducks didn’t end up needing her.

They did, however, need Gardner and Jenna Prandini in the 60 meters. The freshman Prandini’s surprising fifth-place finish in the 60 meters, coupled with Gardner’s routinely excellent second-place finish after a blazing 7.15 time, kept Oregon in the hunt with Kansas and LSU.

Later, Roesler’s runner-up finish in the 800 meters later pushed the Ducks into first. More importantly, the junior’s time of 2:03.89 broke a 31-year-old program record held by Leann Warren. All in all, Fayetteville was kind to the Fargo native, as she left with two school records.

To ice the win, Oregon relied on two athletes with championships already on their resume. Senior Jordan Hasay and redshirt senior Alexi Pappas, who paced Oregon to a NCAA cross country title last autumn, both added points in the 3,000 meters. Hasay, a 15-time All-American, took second with a time of 9:06.61. Pappas, a senior transfer from Dartmouth in her final appearance as a Duck, added another point for Oregon with her eighth-place finish in 9:12.38.

The Ducks have the opportunity to make history in the spring if the women can manage a repeat in the NCAA Outdoor National Championships hosted in Eugene on June 5-8. The Triple Crown consists of the NCAA cross country, indoor and outdoor national championships.

During its current 12-game winning streak, Oregon softball has looked more like the football team.

The Ducks outscored their six opponents 62-12 over the course of last weekend’s Citrus Classic in Orlando, Fla., scoring at least 10 runs in four of the six games. Its pitchers are winning conference honors, and the tops of the conference’s stat sheets almost read like an Oregon roster. It’s been gravy for so long, one has to stretch back to almost a month ago to find a game the Ducks (19-3) lost by more than one run.

But despite the lopsided wins, No. 10 Oregon still isn’t atop the Pac-12 standings. In the sport’s toughest conference, where seven of the nine softball programs are ranked in the Top 25, sweeping cross-country tournaments means little if the Ducks can’t grind out conference wins down the stretch. Here’s who the Ducks need to beat (and beat often) to earn a second-straight berth in the Women’s College World Series.

No. 3 Arizona State — The good news for Ducks fans is the Sun Devils (21-1) finally lost. Still, despite dropping the last game of the Wilson/DeMarini Invitational to No. 22 Baylor, Arizona State remains the force to be reckoned with in the Pac-12. Junior righthander and Junior Women’s Nationals player Dallas Escobedo (11-1) led the Sun Devils to the 2011 national championship as a freshman and has already tossed a no-hitter this year against Boise State. Her teammates’ bats have been busy, too — Arizona State’s average margin of victory is 7.4 runs. Unless things dramatically change, all roads to Oklahoma City will run through Tempe once again this year.

No. 6 California — With the Sun Devils’ loss, the Golden Bears (16-2) now possess the conference’s longest active winning streak at 15 games. California will be busy playing Baylor in the Hawaii Spring Fling in Honolulu while Oregon takes a 10-day rest between its home opener against New Mexico and its conference opener against Stanford, and there’s a chance Baylor’s Bears could sneak up on Cal’s Bears like they did Arizona State and add early intrigue to the conference just before Pac-12 play begins.

No. 11 UCLA — The Bruins (18-3) started out hot, sweeping three straight national tournaments. But twice UCLA followed up those tournament wins with losses, one to Cal State Fullerton at home and one on the road to Cal State Northridge. Fortunately they won’t have to play another Cal school until an April 11 meeting with the Golden Bears. The Bruins will have plenty of games in the meantime to pad its eyebrow-raising 3-2 mark at home.

It hasn’t taken long for freshman pitcher Cheridan Hawkins to get noticed.

After striking out 15 — one short of the program record — in a dominant six-inning shutout of Boston College, Hawkins was named the Pac-12 Conference’s Pitcher of the Week.

The 8-0 win over the Golden Eagles was Hawkins’ fifth on the season. She has been a strikeout machine this year, leading the team in Ks (29), ERA (.45), opposing batting average (.078) and innings pitched (15.2) over the course of last weekend’s Citrus Classic in Orlando, Fla.

Hawkins’ one earned run ended her personal shutout streak of 39 innings.

The Ducks went undefeated for their second straight tournament, posting a 6-0 mark, including key wins over Long Island and No. 14 Michigan.

While softball’s home opener is still more than a week away (March 13 against New Mexico, incidentally), the Ducks paired stellar pitching with hot bats to go undefeated during the weekend’s Citrus Classic in Orlando, Fla.

With its six straight wins, including a head-turning 13-4 win over No. 14 Michigan, Oregon softball also set or tied a slew of program records.

With six home runs against the Wolverines, a Super Regional returnee, the Ducks tied the school’s record in a game. Senior second baseman Kaylan Howard jacked two over the fence — one in the third and one in the fourth — and four of her teammates joined her to reach the same mark Oregon hit in 1999 against Santa Clara.

Howard’s two homers upper her team-leading mark to nine this season.

Joining her home run spree were senior right fielder Samantha Pappas (3-for-5, 2 RBI), junior first baseman Kailee Cuico (3-for-5, 2 RBI), freshman catcher Janelle Lindvall (3-for-4, 2 RBI), and junior shortstop Courtney Ceo (2-for-5, 2 RBI).

The offensive explosive came against one of the nation’s best pitchers, All-Big Ten First-teamer Sara Driesenga (12-4), who gave up nine hits and six runs in 3.2 innings. Her supporting bullpen didn’t fare much better after her exit — Stephanie Speierman and Alice Fitzpatrick combined to strike out four but relinquish eight hits and seven runs.

The win came on the heels of another dominant win, this one a 12-1 rout over James Madison. Lindvall and Howard both knocked out home runs in this match as well, and Jamie Rae Sullivan and Alexa Peterson both added singers in the 15-hit victory.

Since breaking onto the scene in 2008 with the ubiquitous indie hit “Daylight,” Matt & Kim — comprised of Brooklyn pop couple Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino — have enjoyed a steady rise to prominence. Driven by stripped-down, frantic melodies that substitute enthusiasm for complexity, the duo’s songs have made the band a staple at music festivals, including Coachella, Bonnaroo, Sasquatch! and, come March, Ultra Fest.

The Emerald caught up with the band’s male half while the group tours the country in support of its latest album “Lightning” with fellow indie rockers Passion Pit. The tour hits Eugene this Monday, March 4.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Emerald: Your music video for “It’s Alright” came out Monday, and it’s pretty intense — silly but also sexual. Tell me how that idea arose.

Johnson: That came actually a while ago. There was a song two albums ago called “Good Ol’ Fashioned Nightmare,” and I had the idea for that song. We never ended up making a video for that song, and it just sort of stayed in the bank of ideas until we were dancing around when we were making this song. We said, ‘We gotta make a dance video. Gotta do it.’ So we fished around and remembered that idea.

Dancing for me is the least natural way my body moves. Taking a nap on the couch is a good body movement for me. But it was a fun challenge.

A press release called it “nearly NSFW.” You’ve stripped down for a music video before, but was this one embarrassing to shoot?

Oh yeah, especially that little sort of ten-second part where it goes to the still frames of us in sexual poses. We took about 30 different ones of those. The choreographers had this website open with different sex moves.

Doing that in front of 15 people on set … I’m pretty comfortable with doing embarrassing things, but kind of by the end of it, I was like, ‘We gotta finish this.’ I was starting to get a little embarrassed. You can probably see the red come through the lens.

Kim’s been under the weather recently, first injuring her ankle, then the stomach flu. How’s she feeling?

Kim’s had a rough deal so far in 2013. She still has to ice her ankle after most shows. She sprained it the beginning of January and had to do physical therapy and acupuncture to get back on track. But she’s really tough.

Actually when she did it, I heard her. She fell down the stairs — she was texting and walking down stairs, which apparently is just as dangerous as texting while driving at this point — and I heard her make this horrific sound. If you’ve ever seen the Youtube video of the woman stomping grapes, that’s kind of the sound she was making.

And the stomach flu, that’s her achilles heel. She’s tough, but stomach stuff really flattens her out.

You’ve said that after releasing “Grand” (2008) and “Sidewalks” (2010) you were nervous to play those albums live immediately. Is that how you’ve felt with “Lightning?”

Well, we learned something on those two albums, which is live music and recorded music are two very different things. And we’ll go into the studio trying to make the best recorded album we can, but it’s better to adapt it to a live situation because you don’t need every nuance and detail. It’s hot, sweaty, loud, maybe drunk. You can just simplify these things.

The simpler you can make them, it’s better. I think we learned over those albums, just keep the beat and melodies strong. That’s what people really connect to.

Because of the melodies, many consider your music so effervescent and fun that sometimes the lyrics are overlooked. Some of the songs on “Lightning,” especially “Now” and “I Said,” have darker lyrics. Where does that come from?

Lyrics are such an important part of the song, but to us, we think very much in terms of melody and composition. Lyrics are tough. We always end up leaving them to the end, and we work at them for a long time. We find that even though we make what people consider upbeat music, we don’t want to write songs about sunsets and lollipops and shit like that because it just ends up being a gross mess in the end.

So, even though we make upbeat sounding music, I’m glad you noticed that. The lyrics, we just try to make them real and about us. And some of them are darker. I think it creates a balance between the music and the content. While they’re darker, I think they’re about figuring your life out and things we’ve gone through over the course of the years.

In the end, they might have a positive outlook, but they come through a dark road.

Along with Passion Pit, you’re touring with Icona Pop, who’ve enjoyed a lot of recent airplay since their song “I Love It” was featured on HBO’s “Girls.” What’s it like having them open for you?

We’ve only been on tour since right after that episode aired, but people are really connecting to that song. Which is great, because we’ve been the first of three bands to go on, like when we toured with Blink-182 and My Chemical Romance.

You’re playing, and sometimes people are still coming in and whatnot. But the reception has always been fantastic, and they play that song and everyone’s dancing. (It sets) the mood of the show right off the bat.

It ends up being a great bill. You know, they’re from Sweden, so spread the word in the States — they’re great.

You and Kim are big-time tour veterans by now. Is there anything you miss about the do-it-yourself tours you used to do?

Here’s the thing that I miss: When we started touring it was a very small system. We never expected it to grow past that. We sort of found contacts from other friends’ bands that toured on the totally DIY circuit that played in art spaces or warehouses or living rooms or basements. There’s a lot of fun to that, going to a house and then sort of having a potluck thing and hanging out. On the other hand, sometimes cops could come shut shows down, or no one would show up.

I have good memories of all that, but that feeling of growth keeps things feeling new and exciting, and there’s a sort of energy to it.

Given your most recent album title, I think it’s only right we finish this with a lightning round. You down?

Totally.

Whiskey or Vodka?

Vodka. Whiskey goes horribly for me.

Chocolate or vanilla?

Vanilla for me. I’m basic when it comes to all things.

The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?

Stones.

Sasquatch! or Ultra Fest? I know this is a loaded question with you on the Ultra bill in March…

*Laughs* Yeah, I think it would be bad to answer that. Both. I loved Sasquatch. I haven’t done Ultra Fest but I’m excited about it. I think they’re going to be two very different festivals.

Jessica Moore’s hot start on the mound has come as no surprise to the Ducks.

After all, the senior is statistically the greatest pitcher in Oregon softball history. By the end of the year, barring injury, the All-American Moore will push her program-record career numbers in strikeouts and wins further out of reach for others. During the Ducks’ 13-3 start, she has averaged 1.04 strikeouts per inning (up from 0.84 last season), and with a 7-2 record, the Sutter, Calif., native has notched more than half of the wins herself.

She leads the team in ERA (1.31), strikeouts (50) and complete games (2), and despite pitching 48 of the team’s 101 innings this year, she’s given up just 12 walks.

What has been surprising, especially during Oregon’s unblemished streak of wins in last weekend’s Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic, is the play of a freshman quickly establishing herself as the second best in the bullpen.

In her first season as a Duck, Cheridan Hawkins has proven she’s ready for collegiate play. The lefty has struck out 47 in just 33 innings of work, appearing in just one fewer game than Moore and consistently giving Oregon head coach Mike White a “plan B” when Moore’s arm tires out.

The two-time prep All-American was tabbed as ESPN’s sixth-best pitching recruit last season after amassing nearly 1,300 Ks and breaking the state’s strikeout record.

“Cheridan is a really hard worker, and adding a left hander who can throw a riseball will complement our pitching staff,” White said after Hawkins became a Duck.

However, few could have predicted Hawkins would see as much action as she has — 10 appearances, four starts and a 4-1 record. The pitching has been vital, as Oregon has found itself in more than a few close games already this season. In the MNCC, for instance, the Ducks edged out three wins by two or fewer runs, including a 2-1 win over Cal Poly with Hawkins in the circle.

With her developing and Moore continuing her run of excellence — not to mention the dependable play of sophomore Karissa Hovinga, who has struck out 20 in 20 innings of play — Oregon has found itself a bullpen already in midseason form.

The Ducks will try to add to its six-game win streak with a full slate of games in the Citrus Classic in Orlando, Fla., this weekend.

As if a national championship wasn’t enough, Oregon cross country continues to pile up national awards.

The reigning NCAA champions were named Scholar Team of the Year on Monday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. It’s the first such honor for a program enjoying unprecedented success in its first year under head coach Robert Johnson.

Oregon is the third Pac-12 school to win the honor since 2006, the award’s inaugural year: Stanford won in 2006 and 2007, and Washington won the following year in 2008. Villanova earned back-to-back honors in 2009 and 2010 before Georgetown won the award last year.

More from the athletic department’s press release:

Individually, three Oregon runners were selected as Division I All-Academic honorees. Seniors (Jordan) Hasay and (Alexi) Pappas were joined by freshman Allie Woodward in earning that designation. Scholar Teams of the year are determined from among those who earned All-Academic status and placed highest as a team at the most recent NCAA Championships.

As a team, the Ducks posted a 3.66 team GPA through fall semester, the tenth-best team mark in the country and the second highest among all NCAA Championship qualifying teams.

In November, Oregon won its first national title since 1987 behind Hasay’s third-place national finish. Pappas finished eighth, and fellow Duck Katie Conlon wasn’t too far behind in 39th. In addition to the championship, Johnson earned Peter Tegen National Women’s Coach of the Year honors.