Ducks earn fourth straight NCAA invitation

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EUGENE — After an impressive run to end the regular season, the University of Oregon volleyball team (19-9, 9-9) was rewarded with the No. 14 seed overall Sunday in the NCAA Volleyball Championships 64-team bracket announcement.

The Ducks will head to Lexington, Kent., to play Clemson (23-9, 13-7) in the first round Friday, December 4 at 2 p.m. Pacific Time. The other first-round match-up between Kentucky (27-4, 17-3) and Michigan State (17-15, 5-15) follows immediately after.

Saturday's second-round match between Friday's winners is set for a 4 p.m. Pacific Time start.

"We're excited to again be invited to the tournament and seeded among the top 16 teams," Oregon head coach Jim Moore said. "We've never finished the season with three straight Pac-10 wins, and all against very good teams. That's happened because we've focused on taking it one play at a time and staying in the moment. It's a credit to the players who are playing their best volleyball of the year, and now we need to continue to stay focused and work hard."

Oregon is 1-0 all-time vs. Clemson with its 3-0 win (18-16, 15-8, 15-11) opening the 1995 season at the Colorado State Holiday Inn Tournament. UO is also 0-1 vs. Kentucky (a 10-15, 15-13, 13-15 loss in 1981) and has never played Michigan State before.

Last week in Seattle, UO came back from an 0-2 deficit against the then-No. 4 and Pac-10-leading Washington to win 3-2 (25-16, 25-20, 20-25, 25-20) — its first victory over the Huskies in the last 18 matches. Two nights before, UO posted its ninth straight victory over Washington State by a 3-1 count in Pullman (25-16, 25-20, 20-25, 25-20). The weekend before, Oregon had another of its three, 0-2 comebacks in Moore's Duck coaching career when it topped then-No. 7 UCLA (23-25, 18-25, 25-22, 27-25, 17-15) at McArthur Court in Eugene.

Earlier this season, Oregon posted four other wins against NCAA tournament qualifiers — then-No. 9 Minnesota, 3-2, in Denver's Pioneer Classic in mid-September, 3-0 over then-No. 14 California and 3-2 over then-No. 5 Stanford in Eugene in mid-October, and 3-1 over Washington State in late September in Eugene.

Overall in the bracket for the 29th annual NCAA tournament, two-time returning national champion Penn State was tabbed as the top overall seed, and the other top three seeds included returning semifinalist and No. 2 Texas (24-1), No. 3 Florida State (28-2) and returning NCAA runner-up, Pac-10 champion and No. 4 Stanford (21-7, 14-4).

The Pac-10 boasted the most NCAA tournament teams (8) of any conference in the field, and other league invitees and their seeds and rankings follow: No. 6 Washington (23-4, 13-5), No. 8 UCLA (23-8, 13-5), No. 9 California (18-10, 11-7), USC (21-9, 10-8), Arizona (19-10, 8-10), Washington State (18-12, 6-12).

In 2009, the fifth-year mentor Moore and Oregon celebrated their fourth straight postseason invitation for the first time in school history, compared with only four trips prior — 1984, '86, '87 and '89. In that span, UO has enjoyed consecutive NCAA Regional 'Sweet 16' trips for the first time in 2007 and '08, and a 4-3 record in the postseason in his tenure.

UO's 19-9 overall record and sixth-place Pac-10 finish (9-9) continued its first-ever four-year stretch of top-six Pac-10 finishes (fourth-'08, fifth-'07, sixth-'09, '06).

Women's Basketball

OREGON 87, PORTLAND STATE 58 — Nia Jackson recorded career highs with 16 points and seven assists Sunday to lead Oregon past Portland State in the final game of the World Vision Invitational.

Jackson tied a career high with seven rebounds for the Ducks (5-1), who also got 10 points and 14 rebounds from Amanda Johnson.

Micaela Cocks added 13 points and teammates Jasmin Holliday and Nicole Canepa each scored 12.

Kelly Marchant had 13 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Vikings (2-5).

After Portland State cut its deficit to 38-30, Johnson hit a 3-pointer and scored off a rebound in the final minute of the first half to send Oregon into the break up 43-30.

After missing its first seven shots of the second half, Oregon made 10 of 12 to spark a 22-5 run that made it 65-39 with 11:27 to play.

Oregon is off to its best start since the 2006-07 season.

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