Head coach Jim Moore and the Oregon volleyball team are heading back to the NCAA tournament for the fourth consecutive year. Although it was a sure thing the Ducks (19-9, 9-9) were in, it was a waiting game as to where the team would end up after sweeping Washington State and Washington on the road last week to end the regular season.
The answer to Oregon beating No. 4 Washington for the first time in 17 tries was a No. 14 overall seed and a trip to Lexington, Ky., and the University of Kentucky for a match with the 23-9, 13-7 Clemson Tigers.
“We’re excited to again be invited to the tournament and seeded among the top 16 teams,” Oregon head coach Jim Moore said Sunday night in a press release from goducks.com.
The 64-team field was announced Sunday afternoon in a selection show on ESPNU, and Oregon’s bid was just one of eight that were given to the Pacific-10 Conference. The Ducks finished in sixth place and five games behind first place Stanford, which finished with a 14-4 conference record. Also making it for the Pac-10 were Washington, UCLA, Cal, USC, Arizona and 18-12 Washington State.
As for Oregon’s opponent, the Clemson Tigers finished in fourth place in the Atlantic Coast Conference with a 13-7 record. It is the Tigers’ third straight appearance in the yearly tournament.
The first round game will be played on Friday at 2 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, and if the Ducks beat the Tigers, they will move on to face the winner of the Kentucky (27-4, 17-3) and Michigan State (17-15, 5-15) match on Saturday at 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. That winner will move on to the Sweet 16 in St. Paul, Minn., on Friday, Dec. 11.
The 2009 berth is Moore’s fourth in his five years as coach of the Ducks, and it matches the total number of appearances Oregon had in the tournament prior to Moore being hired. The Ducks are 4-3 in the tournament and have reached the round of 16 the past two years. In 2007, the Ducks fell to UCLA 3-1, and in 2008 they lost in a heartbreaking 3-2 thriller to tournament darling Iowa State. Oregon had led the match 2-0, but the Cyclones reeled off three consecutive set wins to stun the Ducks.
“Our goal is to take it one play at a time and stay in the moment,” Moore said. “We’ve never finished the season with three straight Pac-10 wins, and all against very good teams so we’ve done just that recently, and it’s a credit to the players who are playing their best
volleyball of the year.”
The season, however, hasn’t been as successful as Moore would have liked. A season removed from winning 25 matches and placing fourth, the Ducks finished in sixth with a .500 conference record. The 19 wins did continue Oregon’s resurgence, and it was the fourth straight year that the Ducks had at least 17 wins in school history.
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Oregon to face Clemson in first-round matchup
Daily Emerald
November 29, 2009
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