Oregon men’s tennis (8-2) grabbed a comprehensive victory in its second match of the day on Sunday, against Eastern Illinois University (2-10). A changed lineup due to sickness didn’t falter, and new No. 1 Vlad Breazu set the tone with victories on Court 1 in both his doubles and singles matches. Breazu’s wins lead the Ducks to back-to-back wins on the day and maintained a seven-game win streak.

“It’s always protecting the barn for us,” Oregon assistant coach Arron Spencer said. “Anytime we can close out the weekend and not take a loss in the barn is a big thing for us — and [it’s] getting some new guys to get to play tonight in singles.”

Oregon head coach Nils Schyllander rotated his lineup from the win over Louisiana-Lafayette earlier in the day. Breazu and Lachlan Robertson stepped into the No. 1 slot in doubles, while Clement Lemire paired with Paris Pouatcha in the No. 2 slot and Cooper Errey, who played doubles with Lemire against the Ragin’ Cajuns, paired with Lenn Leumkemann in Match 3 for the nightcap.

There was no rust or fatigue evident early on, though, and the Ducks claimed the doubles point for the second time on Sunday with a dominant sub-30-minute performance in which they only gave up three points across three completed matches. Breazu and Robertson won, 6-2, while Leumkemann and Errey shut out their opponents, 6-0. Lemire and Pouatcha finished their game, 6-1, despite the point already being won.

“It’s the pride in the culture of the program,” Spencer said. “These guys do a really good job of knowing that they’re going to come in there and take care of our home — no matter if it’s a long day or a short day.”

Schyllander’s singles lineup was rotated, too. A team dealing with sickness saw Leumkemann and Matthew Burton swapped out for Robertson and Russell Soohoo.

Breazu shut out a frustrated Zach White on Court 1 in the first set before the Panthers’ No. 1 man put up a fight in the second set. White didn’t win his first point until 3-1 in the second set, and eventually fell, 6-3 as Breazu kept the Ducks in the driver’s seat.

“What was most important was to keep being focused,” Breazu said. “Especially after this morning, this match was very important as well. We took care of it all, and the boys brought the energy back.”

Lemire, meanwhile, eased past his opponent in the first set, 6-2 before routing Tyler Carlin, 6-0 in the second set to snag Oregon’s second singles point.

The trend of easy set victories bled onto Court 3, where Vanderstappen seized a 6-1 win in the first set before closing out Duarte Trocato, 6-2 to end the competition in 90 minutes. 

Errey on Court 4 was the second of two Ducks to shut out his opponent in the first set but struggled to finish off Ludolph Wiggett — Errey led, 5-4 when Vanderstappen won the day but eventually added the final point to win, 6-4.

Robertson shut out his opponent, Gui Cauvilla, 6-0 after a comfortable 6-3 victory in the first set while Soohoo, the only singles player who hadn’t played at all prior on Sunday, won his first set, 6-2 before closing out his opponents with his team watching to finish, 6-2.

“Russell does everything right for this program,” Spencer said, “so when he gets his chances and gets to close that last one out, it’s a pretty cool moment.”

“It’s just nice to see that all the guys have my back,” Soohoo said. “Especially against a school that, on paper, we should be beating — but to see all of them supporting me, it’s really awesome.”

No Oregon player gave up more than four total points, and each of the six Ducks players who finished their matches did so in two sets.

The Ducks advance to 8-0 in Eugene on the season — a valuable stat. They will, though, head on the road to face the University of South Florida and University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif. next month.

“It’s a little different on the road,” Soohoo said, “especially with plane flights and everything…it’s a little more tiring. But it’s just always being there for each other and supporting each other. That’s what helps the most.”

Oregon plays USF in Stockton on March 1.

The post Oregon men’s tennis leaves no doubt and routs Eastern Illinois 7-0 in second match of day appeared first on Daily Emerald.

Thirty-five thousand feet in the air above California, on her way to a recruiting visit for a sport that barely existed, Felecia Mulkey took a napkin from the flight attendant. 

She had two problems: The sport which the University of Oregon had hired her to coach didn’t have rules, and she had forgotten her notebook in her checked bag. Carefully, on the wrinkled United Airlines napkin, she sketched out the six-event formula that the collegiate association whose last 12 championships she owns now uses. She relaxed. She could figure out what came next.

The Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls won three straight titles. John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins won seven straight NCAA men’s basketball titles. A dominant women’s soccer program at the University of North Carolina secured nine championships in a row between 1986 and 1994. What Mulkey has done is unprecedented: 12 straight titles, split between two schools. Those two universities are the foundation of a sport that gives women a chance to compete. The sport itself has grown from infancy to nationwide existence in under two decades. For the coaches, athletes and families, it created an environment for personal development that they never would’ve had.

It’s the opportunity sport.

———————–

Twelve years after Mulkey took that flight from Eugene to California, on April 28, 2024, the 13th annual National Acrobatics and Tumbling Association Championship began. Mulkey’s Baylor Bears are seeking their ninth-straight title in a sport that has grown into one of the nation’s newest emerging competitions. The program she coached to the first four titles in the sport’s history, Oregon, will arrive helmed by one of her former recruits. It’s a full-circle moment. 

A few of the students at Fairmont State University (student population: 2,711) knew about it. A few more discovered it on the back pages of ESPN’s streaming website. A couple of student journalists made up the attending media. There may have been more total athletes than attendees in an echoing hardwood facility that was closer to a high school court than it was to any of the Division I gyms nationwide.

Their sport, barely a decade old, is scrambling for any shred of attention it can get. It’s not much. That dearth of exposure means that every time a coach at one of 55 universities nationwide recruits an athlete, they have to teach a new game. It’s an exclusively collegiate sport, but there’s still a few hundred athletes here.

Mulkey is perhaps the most important person in Fairmont today. The matriarch of the sport, as it were, is the head coach of the No. 1 seeded Baylor Bears, and also the NCATA’s (volunteer) Director of Expansion.

She’s talking for the first time after her Baylor Bears comprehensively dismantled the Oregon Ducks — coached by her former athlete, Taylor Susnara — for the third time this year. This time, it was in a national semifinal where they won 19 of 20 heats. It’s the second of three meets in as many days. She’s probably exhausted.

In spite of everything else — the need to prepare for tomorrow’s championship meet — she takes time to chat. The world of acrobatics and tumbling is smaller than the back room in Joe Retton Arena, and she remembers that she follows one of the reporters asking her a question on Twitter.

She laughs, then listens. The question comes: “Have you had any conversations with [Oregon head coach] Taylor Susnara?”

No, she hasn’t yet. She’s only seen her protegé in passing, across the mat. The two are connected by years of history: Susnara was an All-American athlete, recruited by Mulkey at Oregon before she flew east to Waco, TX. The two never shared a mat as part of the same team, though. They’ve never worked together, only watched and learned from afar.

“I love Taylor. I think that she’s doing a fantastic job at Oregon,” Mulkey said.

Not quite as fantastic as herself, of course. Pretty solid, though.

Susnara was in the room before the sport’s greatest sat down. Her answers reflected the strain of a season that slipped away from her team, bit by bit. She’s the product of a sport built to provide opportunity. The coach and her team seized it, handful by handful, until the rope drew taut. The shock is still reverberating.

Both leaders ache for success. Their pursuit of it is a lesson in management, mentality and excellence in a field where the stakes aren’t crystal clear. Their success means more than winning.

—————————————————————————————

Mulkey’s journey began as most do, with an impromptu conversation, and as few have, with a napkin.

In February 2007, she was about as far from Eugene, Oregon as you can get: Kennesaw, Georgia, where she was a researcher on the edge of law school. She’d all-but-given up on sports. From across the hall, she heard the story of Dr. Deborah Yow, at the University of Maryland.

Yow, the longtime athletic director in College Park, Md., had split an all-female group from the sideline and handed them scholarships. Now, they counted towards Title IX. Mulkey was intrigued.

In what she called a “last-ditch effort,” she put together a proposal for Dave Waples, her athletic director, for a Kennesaw State program that would echo Yow’s. “This is what Maryland did,” it would say, according to Mulkey. “This is what Oregon is doing. This is what we could do.”

If Waples said no, she was going to law school.

She had two more phone calls to make. The first: to Renee Baumgartner, at the time the deputy athletic director at Oregon. Mulkey rang. Baumgartner picked it up — back in an era when athletic directors still answered their own phones, Mulkey joked. 

“I was so naive,” Mulkey said. “I had no idea who I was talking to, other than the fact she told me her name, but I didn’t get the weight of who she was and it didn’t resonate. I just went through my list of questions, doing my research for my athletic director.” 

At the end of the call, Mulkey had one more question for Baumgartner. She wanted the contact information for Oregon’s coach — so that she could find out what this mystery person had said to sway the staff in Eugene. Who on Earth, she wondered, had managed to get a sport that didn’t exist green-lit at a Division I school?

No one. Oregon hadn’t filled the position.

Baumgartner told Mulkey to at least consider Oregon as a destination, if it didn’t work out in Georgia. Mulkey thanked Baumgartner for the legitimacy that Oregon’s national search gave the sport — it was much more than naming a cheer coach its head, as Maryland had — and hung up. She called her brother.

“I don’t even know where Oregon is on the map,” she told him. “I don’t know if it’s, like, touching Canada or California.”

He laughed. “Yeah, you should do it,” he said. “The Grateful Dead played in their stadium.”

—————-

Two months later, Mulkey and her Kennesaw State cheer team arrived in Florida for the Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) National Championship. She left her phone in the hotel room — enough calls. They went through the preliminary rounds. When she got back to the room, she had a voicemail. It was Baumgartner. The message played.

“Felicia. This is Renee from Oregon. I’m here in Daytona Beach, I just watched your team compete, and I want to speak with you.”

One more meeting. The two went to a nearby Starbucks the next day. They sat down, across from each other for the first time. Mulkey knew everything she needed to once she walked out the door, she says. She knew that this was her sport, that she would work for Baumgartner, and that they would change the world.

She still wasn’t sure where Oregon was.

——

Now, the napkin.

Mulkey is a big journaler. She fills notebook after notebook on away trips, especially then, across the country in culture shock. On a flight to her first recruiting trip, to Southern California, she left her journal in her checked bag.

The higher-ups at Oregon were concerned. How, they asked, would she stretch what they saw as competitive cheerleading from two-and-a-half minute routines into an event that would be worth the money sunk into a new sport?

With her notebook rattling around the belly of the plane, she pondered: “How can we create an event that lasts about as long as a basketball game?”

The six-event formula she sketched out is, more or less, what the NCATA endorses today. Six events, each of which test skills spanning the diverse background of the athletes involved. Acro, pyramid, toss and tumbling span the first hour of the meet. Each event features somewhere between three and seven athletes. The final event is the most important: a two-minute team routine, including 20 to 30 athletes, worth nearly a third of the meet’s points. Combined, it’s an hour and a half of action. Mulkey and her critics were satisfied.

She landed with the pitch that would secure her first recruit:

“I have no idea what we’re going to do, you guys, but you’re going to be able to come be a Duck, and we’re going to change the world, and we’re going to change college athletics for female athletes. Come and do this with me. Let’s figure it out.”

—————————————————————————————

Taylor Susnara was going to be a cheerleader.

She retired early from gymnastics, in middle school, with a back injury. She flipped over to cheer (it was always in the back of her mind, she said), but at some point, word came to the gym: “Come and do this with me. Let’s figure it out.” 

Mulkey hit Susnara’s competitive bone, the now-Oregon coach said. She wanted the opportunity to exercise that feeling, even after gymnastics was out of the picture. 

Susnara was hooked. Mulkey was off to Waco by the time Susnara arrived in 2015, but it didn’t matter. She was a three-time All American and four-time event national champion. Her competitive drive pushed the Ducks to three national championship appearances. But all three times, it was Mulkey and Baylor in the final who ousted her.

But she made her name in Eugene. There’s a reason that the post-playing roles are dominated by former athletes: It’s a sport so nuanced and complex that those who understand it best are the ones who lived it. Susnara’s assistant coach Karly Nowak, who competed at Oregon from 2020-23, emphasized it during the 2024 season.

“I think that I have a good connection with a lot of them, and I know them really well,” Nowak said in February 2024, “and I think I know how to get to them and know how to talk to them and what they need at certain times.”

Susnara added Nowak to her staff in 2023, less than a month after she graduated from Oregon, before hiring former Hawaii Pacific University assistant Jacie Van de Zilver in July 2024. Both, like Susnara, have a long history in the sport — it’s no mistake. Susnara’s program is built just as much on mental experience as it is professional expertise.

Nearly a decade later, she still has her eyes on the queen. Susnara and her program stormed through their third National Signing Day. She inked ten incoming freshmen, pulled from corners of the nation: Katy, TX. Burlington, NJ. Corvallis, OR. It’s just one sign of her impact.

Their backgrounds vary just as much. Lyric Davis, from Vancouver, WA, is a Level 10 competitive gymnast. Maile Tower, from Geismar, LA, is a two-time cheerleading national champion. The quote at the top of Susnara’s press release cites her excitement with the diversity she’s recruited. 

“Not only are you coming here to be a collegiate athlete, but you’re receiving your degree,” Susnara said, laying out her pitch to athletes. “The opportunities here at Oregon are just top notch as far as developing you as a whole human, rather than just an athlete.” 

There’s substance to her approach. Twelve of her student-athletes made the spring 2024 honor roll at Oregon, the most of any non-track and field sport. 

“In recruiting, it’s the talent we’re looking for,” she said, “but one thing that I’ve found really important is just who they are as individuals, their backgrounds…what their character is like. Ultimately, are they going to add value to the culture we’re trying to build here?”

Oregon believes in her. Susnara signed her own contract extension in July, keeping her in Eugene through at least 2028. Her credentials aren’t in doubt: In three seasons at the helm, she’s already coached the Ducks to seven national event titles, five All-American honors and one national championship appearance, in 2023.

She hasn’t toppled the queen yet, though.

————

Mulkey left Eugene in 2015 to take the job at Baylor, just before Susnara arrived as an athlete. She’d built two programs from the ground up, one a competitive cheer program at Kennesaw State, the other the acrobatics and tumbling program at Oregon. Never before, though, had she attempted to turn a program around.

She didn’t bring anyone with her, it’s important to note — no coaches, no athletes. She left everything she built on the banks of the Willamette River and flew to Waco, TX. She’d found success. Replicating it was the challenge she welcomed.

“I learned every year,” she said, “but I’ve never learned more than I did that year.” Off the mat was her new classroom, she made sure to point out. It was more about team culture and expectation management than pushing difficulty levels.

The difference now is astounding. She has in her office a photo of what she left behind: A frame of the first “Team Stunts and Gymnastics” group, on tan mats at the old McArthur Court on campus in Eugene. The placard reads: “Duck Invitational Meet. MacArthur Court. February 21, 2010.

Baylor just moved into the Ferrell Center last year, its permanent, exclusive home after years spent sharing the on-campus gym with every event imaginable. Alumni are coming back to visit, Mulkey said, and athletes from her first team returned to see the gym that they never had. 

“We’re all laughing,” Mulkey said, “And they were talking to my current team, and so my current team said, ‘Coach Fee, tell us about them.’” 

Mulkey remembered how hard-headed her first team was. It took her three months to get through to them. After that? “All bets were off.” The Bears stormed to a first-ever national title, and their grip on the trophy hasn’t let up yet.

Even now, even nine seasons and nine national championships later, she’s kept up at night. She’s done the create-a-sport part and sure, that’s “so cool” to her. Now, it’s about culture and legacy. Between preseason and NCATA responsibilities, Mulkey is traveling cross-country, teaching coaches her recipe of sustained excellence.

“I love figuring it out,” she said. “…How can I make these 53 women come together as one? They’re from all different walks of life, all different sports — diverse in every aspect.”

It’s a new puzzle every year. She loses All-Americans every summer, because that’s what great programs do. That’s how someone who owns every title in the history of the sport gets up in the morning.

Her coffee tastes like titles. Susnara’s tastes like revenge.

————

The championship coach was exhausted the day after the title meet, she confirms. She talks about the emotional drain — ”It’s like you’re running on pure adrenaline until after the championship,” she said, “and I just crashed.” She read crime fiction by Karin Slaughter and sat alone. No work.

Susnara had different plans. Whilst the Ducks flew home from the emptying campus at Fairmont State, the soon-to-be-third-year head coach was hungry. 

She spoke during the season about whether she would be satisfied without a national championship. On February 27, 2024, she thought just of avoiding Baylor in the early rounds of the bracket, not of the end result. After losing to the Bears at home on April 5, she focused on the positives in a closely-contested eight-point defeat. Sitting at her folding table in a back room of a gymnasium in West Virginia, she didn’t mention it. She opened up, three weeks later, in Eugene.

“Honestly,” she said, “I think if you asked me before the championship, I was highly disappointed — having the three losses on our record and going forward to the championship after being ranked second last year.”

Two weeks after the national semifinal loss, the Ducks were back in the gym. She refocused. She’s talking about Fee again.

“For me as the head coach here at Oregon,” she said, “my goal is to knock her down here soon. You bring those championships back to Oregon, you know. I think she keeps me personally, on my toes and wanting to continue to challenge myself and my program.”

The season is four months away. The coaches already have each other circled on their calendars — February 22, when the two will meet in Eugene. Their story has barely even started.

This is Part I of a three-part series telling the story of acrobatics and tumbling at the University of Oregon. Find Parts II and III online at dailyemerald.com.

The post The Opportunity Sport, Part I: Two coaches, one culture appeared first on Daily Emerald.

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Oregon women’s basketball — unranked and coming off a frustrating home loss to Maryland — kept it close throughout a defensive battle against No. 1, undefeated UCLA. But that doesn’t matter. The Bruins took the 62-52 win. Call it whatever you want. It’s not a win.

“We don’t believe in moral victories,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves said right away in his postgame press conference. “We’re disappointed that we lost.”

The Ducks, losers of their last two after rattling off four straight wins, weren’t in the best shape to take an exam that would’ve already been challenging. Guard Peyton Scott, who suffered an undisclosed knee injury in the midweek defeat against the Terrapins, wasn’t rostered. There was no postgame update, but Graves confirmed postgame that the injured knee was the same one that kept the guard out for the majority of the 2023-24 season. 

Graves, then, was forced to rely on transfer star Deja Kelly and partner her with a combination of Elisa Mevius and Nani Falatea throughout. Issues, though, weren’t going to be in the backcourt. 

Bruins center Lauren Betts, who averages nearly a double-double, would have to be the Ducks’ greatest concern. Oregon center Phillipina Kyei has started 16 of 23 games this season, but the 6’8’’ center was Graves’ greatest asset against UCLA’s offensive weapon. 

“I thought [Kyei] was great,” Graves said. He noted that his plan was to spell his center whenever Betts was on the bench. “She hung in there against the best player in the country, hands down.”

Betts, though, turned the ball over twice in the opening three minutes as the Ducks had reasonable defensive success — as much as you can ask for against the country’s best team. Kyei held her own with Betts, and the Bruins’ points came from elsewhere.

The issue came with the ball, where the Ducks shot just 11.1% from the field in the first quarter, and were 0-4 from beyond the arc. The shot creation was excellent, even, but 3-point efforts that missed the rim entirely from guards Sofia Bell and Elisa Mevius and wide-open layups that couldn’t find the rim were possession-killers.

“I thought that we got off to a good start, even though we didn’t score the ball,” Graves said. “We were competing, and we defended. The game wasn’t lost in the first quarter.”

Oregon couldn’t find its footing in the second quarter, either. Kyei put the first Ducks points from the field onto the board with a lay-up, but the Bruins were immediately able to find the wide-open Londynn Jones on the opposite wing for a three.

Both sides, though, went long stretches in the first half without points — including a five-minute stretch where neither put a point on the board. Oregon finished the half within reach of the Bruins, but shooting 6-35 and without a 3-point make in the half. The Bruins weren’t much better: 8-25 from the floor and with nine turnovers, but made three efforts from deep.

“Ultimately, we’ve just got to make shots overall,” Kelly said. “But for our defense to be able to allow us to hang around as long as we did…that speaks volumes.”

The Ducks came out of the half stronger than they ever looked in the first two periods. Kelly looked comfortable, finally, as she rolled into a pull-up jumper. The Ducks’ defense — their strength in the first half — forced a stop, and Kyei added two more. The Oregon center, though, picked up her third foul with less than five minutes played in the period and sat for much of the period. 

“We were excited for [the Kyei-Betts] matchup,” Kelly said. “[She] was probably one of the only ones who could match up with her in terms of size — I thought she did a really good job.”

It didn’t last. It proved too much for Oregon’s defense to withstand multi-minute scoreless runs over and over. The Bruins scored 18 points in the quarter, more than they did in either of the first-half frames, and opened up a 10-point lead heading into the final quarter. 

Facing a double-digit deficit throughout, Oregon shot 75% from the field, but never got within two possessions of their opponents and only took eight shots from the floor in the period. Kelly (14 points) and Falatea (19) made shots. It wasn’t enough.

“Overall, I think we’re in a good spot,” Kelly said. “We have a few more games that we need to win.”

Close only counts in horseshoes and ranking polls. Right now, the Ducks might not even be close.

Oregon tips off against rival Washington on Wednesday at 6:00 PM at Matthew Knight Arena.

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The schedule for Oregon acrobatics and tumbling always appeared difficult. It’s a sport with few teams — and even fewer great ones. The best teams almost exclusively face each other with an eye on the top seeds in April’s NCATA National Championship. 

But when the NCATA’s top-15 Coaches’ Poll released on Jan. 31, it became evident just how difficult the Ducks’ task will be. Fourth-ranked Oregon faces four of the top eight teams, including three of the top five. Of seven meets, only one (Morgan State University) will be against an unranked program. 

Oregon did not face an unranked team last year; the six ranked programs that it did compete against in the regular season finished with an average rank of 4.83 in the NCATA’s final pre-championship poll. This year, the Ducks will face six ranked teams once again, with an average preseason rank of 3.33 — more than a one-point increase. 

There’s more variety than ever, too. In the past two seasons, the Ducks faced at least two programs twice. It’s doubling up on Baylor this year, as usual, but won’t see another opponent twice until a potential rematch in the NCATA Championship. There are no conference championships for Oregon’s program, which is not affiliated with the Big Ten Conference for competition purposes.

The Ducks have also not faced the No. 1 ranked team on the road in their final meet of the season in the past four years. That could change with their visit to Waco, TX. on April 5. The Bears held onto the No. 1 ranking for the entire 2024 season, and despite losing key contributors to graduation, will be a difficult opponent for an Oregon squad potentially fighting for seeding in the final week.

Oregon’s acrobatics and tumbling schedule kicks off on Feb. 15 against Morgan State at Matthew Knight Arena.

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The big man pulled up from deep.

It’s become a regular occurrence when Oregon men’s basketball plays: The lanky, 7-foot center finds his way to the wing. The ball comes. His mark doesn’t. 

Splash. It’s what Nate Bittle does.

“It spreads the floor,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said after Bittle made two 3-point shots against Maryland. “He can shoot ‘em. He shot well in practice (even though) his percentage in game hasn’t been what we want. His looks were good tonight.”

It’s been a standout year for the center (avg. career-bests 13.6 points per game, 51.4% field goal), who played in just five games last year. A broken wrist in his third game of the season held him down. Then an illness kept him sidelined, frustratingly, for almost the rest of the year while Oregon made its run to a Pac-12 Championship and NCAA Tournament appearance. 

He’s back now. He gained 30 pounds since overcoming the illness, Bittle said in a preseason interview. He felt “100%” in April, nearly a month after the Ducks exited the Tournament. In that same interview, though, Bittle foreshadowed his rise. “We did a lot of footwork stuff this year,” the center said, “(and I’ll) play on the perimeter more.”

Play on the perimeter he has. Bittle is shooting 3.2 3-point efforts per game — fourth on the team, just behind the Ducks’ three guards — and he’s making them, too. There’s no better example than Oregon’s January road trip, where Bittle rolled into Columbus, Ohio and drained four of eight shots from deep, including three in the second half as the Ducks came from behind to win. Bittle made the final free throw too, for good measure. Why not?

Oregon looks different this year. There’s no more star reliance, not really. It’s a team effort, and if that means the 7-foot senior from Central Point, Ore. can drop a few in the bucket from beyond the arc, by all means, fire away: Nate Bittle is a 3-point weapon.

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For once, Oregon wasn’t behind.

The Ducks didn’t trail at the half, nor down the stretch. It was a strange sense of calm for a team that has fought hard and long for most of its wins. Against Washington (10-9, 1-7 Big Ten), it found its rhythm in a second half that, while close, never quite fell the Huskies’ way.

No. 15 Oregon (16-3, 5-3 Big Ten) pulled out a 82-71 victory over its rival in a late, West Coast tip on Tuesday night. The Ducks struggled to get the ball to their stars, but the group around them surged as they bounced back from the weekend defeat to No. 11 Purdue. The home side struggled to contain Washington’s bigs, but it didn’t matter in the end.

Green prevailed over purple.

Oregon head coach Dana Altman rolled out his usual starters — Jackson Shelstad, TJ Bamba, Jadrian Tracey, Brandon Angel and Nate Bittle — against a Washington side that sits 190th nationally in points per game (Oregon ranks 69th).

Oregon’s issues flipped early on from its loss to the Boilermakers on the weekend. The Ducks posted nine points in the first six minutes but gave up 12 to a combination of Washington bigs Great Osobor and Wilhelm Breidenbach. The Huskies scored 20 points in the paint in the first half, including all of their first 14.

“You know it’s gonna be a dog fight,” Angel said. “To be honest, those are games I love. You’ve gotta compete and play physical…I don’t know what the exact box score was, but I felt like we dominated.” Oregon outscored Washington in the paint, 42-38, and outrebounded the Huskies 37-24.

The home group’s offensive struggles soon returned, though. The Ducks went through three and five-minute runs without a point in the first 10 minutes alone, and Washington surged ahead. Shelstad, Oregon’s joint-leading 3-point shooter, took zero shots from deep in the period. Guard TJ Bamba, who’s shot just 27.4% from deep this season led the Ducks with seven points in the first half, but shot just 1-4 from beyond the arc. 

“I just saw the way they were guarding me from three — that was disrespectful,” Bamba said. 

He’d finish the game with 21 points (one point off his season high) and four steals on 3-9 shooting from outside.

“I feel like I’m the best defensive player in the Big Ten,” Bamba said. “I’ve been racking up steals.”

With Shelstad (two first-half points) and Oregon center Bittle (three) shut out of the box score, alternative scorers took over for the Ducks. Oregon led without the two stars on efficient (14-28/50%) shooting, and Bamba and Barthelemy led all scorers with nine points in the period. 

“We’ve been saying all year that one of our biggest strengths is our depth,” Angel said. “Any given night we’ve got five, six, seven (players) who we know can score double digits (and) defend. It’s ‘next man up.’”

Although the Ducks re-emerged at the half with renewed vigor, it couldn’t get its stars going. Bittle added just one basket on 1-3 shooting in the first 10 minutes of the period, while Shelstad missed his only shot.

The Huskies hung around. Osobor went down hard on a layup that would eventually become a Barthelemy flagrant foul, but returned to the game immediately to make both free throws and continue to give the Ducks issues inside. He shot six free throws in the second half alone, earning multiple fouls off Bittle.

Transfer portal pickup Supreme Cook appeared off the bench to add six second-half points and aid the Ducks’ effort.

“Supreme played great,” Altman said. “He posted up hard, he wanted that ball, he made his free throws — he was the difference in the game.”

“Supreme’s a monster,” Angel followed up. “He’s one of the strongest players I’ve played with…you saw it first hand tonight. He buried people in the post.”

High praise. 

For once, the Ducks weren’t roaring from behind against an inferior team. Instead, they did what they have struggled to do all year: defend a lead. Oregon led at the half, led with five minutes to play, and didn’t relinquish its advantage in the last 8:26.

With 45 seconds left, Osobor, who dominated the paint for so long, took it upon himself to shoot from deep, but found only air.

As the crowd crowed its appreciation, the big man stared up, looking for answers in the sky. All he could see was an illuminated “O”.

Oregon heads on the road to face Minnesota in Minneapolis this Saturday. Tip is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

Atmosphere is a touchy subject at Matthew Knight Arena.

Against No. 17 Purdue on Jan. 18, for the first time this year, Oregon opened up all of its upper-deck sections. For one of the only times since coronavirus restrictions were lifted, the Ducks sold out the arena most famous for curtaining off those seats. No, it’s not normal in Eugene. But it’s welcome.

Oregon is not a team without flaws. It trailed early and often throughout its inaugural Big Ten campaign. It couldn’t score on Saturday. Fans haven’t been interested for the sake of basketball, and while the team has won, it has not done so with confidence. But this is an AP top-15 team playing at home in front of a fanbase that has proven it can show out. It’s a big occasion, and the team didn’t play like it.

“The crowd was great. We don’t have any excuses,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said in a frustrated press conference afterwards.

Maybe it only happens for these games. The Ducks faced No. 11 Arizona nearly a year ago in the last near-sellout of their home court. Wildcats guard Caleb Love scored 36 in that game as fans flowed down the aisles and out of the arena with the game clock still ticking.

Those aisles were starting to clear again with two minutes left and Purdue up 11 on Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t pretty; midway through the second half, the teams combined to make two of their last 18 shots. Oregon had turned the ball over four times in the last nine minutes and Purdue hadn’t made a field goal in over two and a half minutes. It was one of the Ducks’ worst offensive performances of the season, and a frustrated Altman took the blame.

“I’ll tell you what,” Altman said. “That’s a poorly-coached team.” It certainly didn’t look like a team headed up by one of the game’s most experienced coaches with players up and down the roster who have been to bigger stages than this. 

Altman steamed over the poor shot selection — Oregon shot over 52% from inside the arc, but took just 21 of its 50 shots from there. It was understandable: the Ducks held a team that is top-10 nationally in shooting percentage to its second-worst point total of the year, and couldn’t take advantage.

Senior center Nate Bittle sat, defeated, as he talked about Oregon’s failure to perform in front of what he called “the most fans I’ve had here.” 

It’s hard for a seven-foot man to look short, but Oregon’s do-it-all big man did as he laid out the team’s failure to meet expectations in front of a one-time-only crowd.

It’s difficult to reconcile this team with the one that roared back from consecutive deficits on its road trip with supreme self-confidence. It was defensively solid but offensively hapless, and so the fans left dissatisfied. The performance has not always matched the occasion this year — not now, and not when the lights are dim and they must come from behind.

The Ducks return to action three days from the big game with one the antithesis of Saturday night: an 8 p.m., Tuesday night tip off against an unranked team, but a one it calls a rival. 

Oregon faces Washington at home. In the standings, it’s not a must-win. Once again, though, Bittle, Altman and the Ducks must bounce back.

To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. It’s a simple rule.

In one of college athletics’ newest sports, the Ducks have dominated everyone, except for one team: the eight-time defending champion Baylor Bears. To win a first national championship since 2014, they’ll have to take that step.

What the Bears do better than any other program in the sport is execute well enough at a difficulty no one else can reach. They’re always within a chance of a win: The last time the program lost a meet by more than two points was a 2017 matchup with the Ducks. Their start values generally exceed those of the other program’s — because no other program has been able to do what Baylor head coach Felecia Mulkey’s has.

Last season, Oregon head coach Taylor Susnara raised her group’s start values gradually throughout the season. A February matchup with Baylor, then, required near-perfection for a shot at victory. The Ducks managed 271.585 points, but still fell to Baylor’s 278.935. The difference was the Bears’ two-point advantage in available points and a five-point differential in points scored.

Oregon’s first matchup with its rival comes knocking early once again in 2025. The two are scheduled to face off at Matthew Knight Arena on February 22 after a single warm-up meet against Morgan State University. Susnara will have a choice to make: risk execution errors with a high start value or trust in her group’s strength to absorb the disadvantage.

A packed 2025 slate includes four total 2024 National Championship finalists, each scheduled in succession after the February matchup with Baylor. Odds for the Ducks to qualify for the 2025 edition of the tournament are high, but the regular season will determine seeding — an all-important factor. Teams compete three back-to-back meets in a single four-day period over the course of the Championships, and facing a tired Baylor with renewed technique could be the key to victory.

Susnara preaches mental fortitude: it’s what carried her group through multiple rebound victories in a four-win, national semifinal season last year. This year, it’ll be belief they pursue: Trust in ability, faith in execution and confidence in one more shot at one of the most dominant teams in sports.

A slim smile escaped Dan Lanning’s lips as the third-year head coach sat in front of the media after No. 1 Oregon (12-0, 9-0 Big Ten) waltzed through a 49-21 Senior Night beatdown of the Washington Huskies.

“We’ve said it several times,” Lanning said. “[It’s] being able to play our best ball at the end of the season when it matters most. I think everybody can recognize that college football is hard. It’s tough to be resilient and consistent and win some tight games. I think that really shows some of the character of our team.” 

When Oregon walked out of Camp Randall Stadium after playing the Wisconsin Badgers two weeks ago, it was one of those tight games. It didn’t have some of the players who were linchpins of the Ducks’ success. It didn’t matter. Oregon prevailed.

After eight weeks of punishing football, Oregon was finally afforded the opportunity to manage its wounds, look back at 11 weeks of near-perfect football and take a look at the week ahead. It brought back key players. It capitalized on opportunity against Washington. 

On Friday, the Ducks board their flight to Indianapolis as beneficiaries of a well-timed break. They will roll into Lucas Oil Stadium refreshed, recharged and ready for a postseason that will test their limits.

The difference? Opponents Penn State (11-1, 8-1 Big Ten) are what Oregon was two weeks ago: Six weeks on from its bye, banged up and hurting. The No. 3 Nittany Lions are missing tackle Anthony Donkoh. Quarterback Drew Allar (18 TD, 5 INT) has been banged up all year. Yes, they held Ohio State to just 20 points (the Ducks allowed them 31) in a top-five loss in State College, but they’re not healthy, nor rested.

Oregon is.

Notably, the winner of Saturday’s matchup is granted yet another break. The loser will likely claim the No. 5 seed in the final College Football Playoff poll and host a Round 1 game two weeks later. 

Meanwhile, the champion will almost certainly be awarded the No. 1 or No. 2 seeds and the first-round bye that comes with it. They won’t play until Dec. 31, at the earliest — an extra nine days of rest.

For a team rolling off an undefeated season of football, about to play more games than any have in the modern playoff era, the break is invaluable. The national champion will end the year on a run of at least four matchups with playoff-caliber opponents — punishing games like the ones these teams have learned to endure. The healthiest team often wins.

Defensive end Jordan Burch was part of an school-record-tying 10 sack performance against Washington. Oregon’s star pass-rusher suffered an injury in practice ahead of Oregon’s win over Ohio State and slipped in and out of the trainer’s room down the stretch. The Ducks replaced him with ample production from second-year edges Matayo Uiagalelei and Teitum Tuioti (10.5 and 5.5 sacks in 2024, respectively), but Burch’s full return was long-awaited.

He showed up on Saturday night to the tune of 2.5 sacks and three tackles. He ranks fourth in the conference, with 8.5 on the season. No other player in the top 33 has played fewer than 10 games — Burch played in eight.

“It felt amazing to be back out with my teammates,” the senior said afterward. “Being hurt and just watching them play — it hurts you deep down. I’ve got full confidence in what they can do, and it all came together tonight.”

The value of getting those players back cannot be overstated. The Ducks’ signature win this year came without Burch and without Gary Bryant Jr. They’ve won without Tez Johnson, without Marcus Harper II and without Terrance Ferguson. All will likely play in Indianapolis. That matters.

The break matters just as much. Mentally and physically, it’s a chance to reset. Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel believes it. He was without his best weapon, Johnson, since the junior exited Oregon’s win over Michigan in the first quarter. The senior receiver returned to action against the Huskies.

Without Johnson, Gabriel averaged 231 passing yards per game and a 67.76% completion rate. It’s well below his average in games featuring Johnson: 286 passing yards and a 75.69% completion percentage. 

Two of those games are in Gabriel’s bottom three for completion percentage this season (the outlier, at Wisconsin, ranks No. 6), and just one of the four touchdown passes he threw went for more than nine yards. Johnson’s ability to take the top off defenses (he has touchdown receptions for 52, 48 and 31 yards among his nine scores this season) is invaluable to an Oregon group that values its “haymaker” just as much as its “jab” — terms Lanning used in a recap video released by the program.

“It’s good,” Gabriel said, “I think more than playing. I think it helps with overall morale — his lively energy [too]. You get the ball in his hands and there’s a lot that comes with that, but we love Tez. We need him. He’s a big part of what we do.”

The two were reunited at Autzen Stadium last weekend to the tune of three connections for 36 yards and a score. As time expired, Johnson stood behind the line — and suddenly, inverted. The receiver on a comeback mission was doing backflips. The worries evaporated.

He played his time on the sideline down after the game with a smirk.

“It wasn’t nothing,” he said. “A little veteran’s break. I’m back now.”

That’s what Oregon just got. A little veteran’s break for one of the most experienced, rested and dangerous teams in college football.

They’re back now. It’s time to go.

It’s about depth, even in November. In a game that mimicked a March turnaround, Oregon (6-2) couldn’t turn around its first loss and dropped a second-consecutive game to South Dakota State (4-2) 75-70 in Hawai’i. A poor shooting performance from beyond the arc, where the Ducks made just one of 11, compounded tired legs as the Ducks travel home winless from their trip.

On a 24-hour turnaround from the program’s first loss of the season, Oregon head coach Kelly Graves handed in a changed lineup card: Out went Alexis Whitfield, Phillipina Kyei and Sofia Bell in favor of Nani Falatea, Sarah Rambus and Ehis Etute. Star guards Deja Kelly and Peyton Scott started their second game in as many days.

The Jackrabbits, who also endured a tough loss to Georgia Tech in Hawaii, had extra time off between showings and made just one change: Kallie Theisen in for Mesa Byom. 

Etute (8 points, but fouled out), who made her debut against Georgia Tech, played the first two minutes and grabbed a basket before exiting for Amina Muhammad. As more regular starters entered, though, tired bodies seemed an issue. At one point, the Ducks went three minutes and six shots without a point from the field in the first quarter. 

Graves began to rotate, though, and by the end of the quarter, Oregon was six-for-seven on its last seven shots and had points from seven players. Only Kelly (19 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists), who played 30 minutes on Monday night, played without respite in the first frame. The graduate transfer ended the half with 10 points in 18 minutes.

A four-minute 9-0 Jackrabbit run with seven turnovers for the Ducks — Oregon would end the half with 11 — left them trailing by four points at the half despite sitting in the bonus for nearly the last seven minutes of the quarter and shooting 52% from the field (50% from beyond the arc).

Graves’ group averages just 14 turnovers per game, while SDSU gives it away 13 times per game. The teams combined for 23 in the first half. It didn’t matter that they were on fire — both shot over 50% from the floor before the break. They couldn’t stop giving it away, and the Jackrabbits nearly doubled (13-7) the Ducks’ points off those free possessions.

Out of the locker room, though, the Ducks didn’t surge. Kelly bettered her full-game total with the first points of the half, but with Kyei and Etute in foul trouble, the Oregon bench was once again tested. The script flipped by the end of the third frame, and the Ducks turned it over just twice, shot 43% from the field but trailed by 5.

It finally looked to have clicked in the fourth. Muhammad and Whitfield opened up the quarter with back-to-back buckets to cut the margin to just one. Kelly held the margin with a jumper, and nearly gave the Ducks their first lead of the half a minute later but was called for a contentious charge. She turned it around on the way back down the floor, though, and grabbed a tenacious and-one layup to draw Oregon even. Mevius was next to end a two-minute drought from the floor: 64-64. 

The Ducks, however, would only put up six points in the final 2:44. They drew as close as two points with 25 seconds left, but couldn’t make it count. Peyton Scott (2 points, 1-8 FG) missed Oregon’s 11th 3-point effort of the day, and the Jackrabbits walked it out.

As Oregon travels back to Eugene ahead of a matchup with Washington State at Matthew Knight Arena on Dec. 4, they’ll await the AP Poll. The Ducks entered the week ranked 21st on the back of wins over No. 12 Baylor and Auburn, but could likely drop out after failing to win on the road.