A year ago, the Oregon volleyball team was picked to finish eighth in the Pacific-10 Conference by the league coaches. They exceeded those expectations, earning a tie for sixth and making the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1989.
This year, the expectations are higher for third-year coach Jim Moore’s squad. In the preseason poll announced Thursday by the Pac-10, the Ducks were picked to finish seventh. Their 42 points were just four behind sixth-place Arizona.
Moore, last year’s Pac-10 Coach of the Year, doesn’t pay much attention to the poll. “It doesn’t matter if we are picked at the top or at the bottom of the poll, we have to play the best we can,” he said in a press release.
Arguably the toughest conference in the nation, the Pac-10 had three teams in last year’s Final Four – national runner-up Stanford, UCLA and 2005 national champion Washington.
The coaches picked Stanford to finish first, giving the Cardinal eight of 10 first-place votes. USC and UCLA were second and third, respectively, each receiving one of the remaining first-place votes. Washington and California rounded out the top five.
Arizona State, Oregon State and Washington State were picked eighth, ninth and 10th, respectively.
The Ducks start the 2007 season Aug. 24 against Idaho in the Oregon Kickoff Classic.