– The Oregon men’s basketball team is expected to face its stiffest competition of the year when they are set to host No. 7 Arizona on Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. at Matthew Knight Arena. It’ll be a huge test for the Ducks, who currently stand at 11-3 overall, because Arizona is as deep and as talented a team in the country as Oregon will ever face during the season. Arizona sometimes struggles to score the ball but its defense is second to none while the Ducks are the complete opposite. It’s going to come down to Joseph Young and if he can take over the game and lead the Ducks to a win in a should-be raucous crowd at MKA.
– Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston has declared for the upcoming 2015 NFL Draft. While this may come as no shock to anybody, it does have some impact on the Ducks and star quarterback Marcus Mariota. Mariota and Winston have been projected as the top two picks in the draft and the debate as to who should be the future quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers should increase once Mariota declares for the draft, as he’s expected to do. The real question though, who goes No. 1 overall?
– The Civil War picks up again, this time in women’s basketball, as the Ducks travel to face No. 11 Oregon State in Corvallis. The game features two of the best post players in the conference, if not the entire country, in Oregon’s Jillian Alleyne and Oregon State’s Ruth Hamblin. A win in the rivalry could be just what new head coach Kelly Graves needs to prove to potential recruits that Ducks are on their way back to the top after a few struggling seasons under former head coach Paul Westhead.
– The Oregon men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams will start the 2015 indoor season as top-three ranked teams. Although both teams won the 2014 Indoor National Championships last year, the men will enter the season ranked No. 2 and the women No. 3. The men team returns Edward Cheserek and Parker Stinson, all-Americans in two separate events each, while the women will be led by Jasmine Todd and Jenna Pardini.
– Roman Sorkin is officially an Oregon Duck. Sorkin has enrolled at the University of Oregon for the 2015 winter term and will be immediately eligible to play for the Ducks. The 6-foot-9 forward will provide such needed size and depth to an Oregon team looking to make it back into the NCAA Tournament this year after being eliminated by Wisconsin in the Sweet-16 last year.
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