Tuesday Night Talks LIVE TONIGHT! 9:00 PT: with Charles Fischer and Kurt Liedtke of Fishduck.com
Its Tuesday, which of course means another episode of your favorite podcast on the internet. Tonight, Matt Daddy and I are joined by Charles Fischer and Kurt Liedtke (keeerrrttt1) of Fishduck.com, where we'll talk some Xs and Os, and project how the offense will evolve given the changes at the QB position. As always you can listen live or download the podcast after recording by visiting the ATQ page on Talkshoe.
For you iTunes users, Tuesday Night Talks is now on iTunes, so please rate and review us.
Everybody Get Excited...FOR SOFTBALL!!!
For the third straight year, the Oregon women's softball team has swept through the regional round of the NCAA tournament and into the Super Regionals. However, Oregon is still looking for their first-ever win in a Super Regional, and their first trip to the College World Series since 1989. And with the 2012 Super Regional kicking off Friday night in Austin, TX, it's time for Duck fans to find and summon their inner softball junkie.
Plus, you know, there isn't any football this week.
So, college softball newbies, what do you need to know?
-College softball teams only go so far in the tournament as their ace pitcher will take them, and junior Jessica Moore is already a proven winner. Moore has been a workhorse in her second season in Eugene, starting 41 of the team's 57 games and amassing a 30-12 record, with 233 strikeouts and an ERA of 2.40. The underhand softball motion, while still taxing, is a much more natural motion than the overhand pitching motion used in baseball, and it's not uncommon to see softball pitchers, especially in the NCAA tournament, to throw more than one game in a day, running her pitch count above 200 pitches.
-Many ATQ die-hards will remember my call to arms for Oregon volleyball, with the rallying cry, "TINY SPANDEX SHORTS!" Now, softball does not provide us with such luxuries. It does, however, bring us one of the under-appreciated gems of femaledom. I am speaking of course about GIRLS IN BASEBALL PANTS. On top of that, they're wearing eye black, diving around, and high fiving and smacking each other. I like it.
-Because of the high quality of pitchers at the college level, games tend to be low scoring, especially in the tournament. One mistake could be the difference in the game. Soccer fans should love it.
Quack Fix: Baseball takes on Portland
Wow, not a lot of quack out there this morning. If you find any, make sure to pass it a long.
- The Diamond Ducks will finish their non-conference schedule when they host Portland for two, with the first game this afternoon. The Ducks have been on a hot streak lately, winning 14 of their last 15 games. After Portland, the Ducks will close out the Pac-12 season with a series against the Beavers.
- Ted Miller selects the top 10 players from the Pac-12, with two Ducks making the list. And, in case you didn't see it, Miller also picks the Cal game as Oregon's most important game (after the obvious USC choice).
- Over at fishduck, Charles and Josh have some additional breakdown from the spring game, Jerod Young runs down Jimmie Sherfie's standout season, and Kurt has a great writeup of the 1963 football season.
Go Ducks!
The ATQ All-Time Oregon Basketball Fantasy Draft : Rounds 1 & 2
Last year ATQ put together an All-Time Oregon Ducks Fantasy Football Draft. If we did that again, I wonder what round De'Anthony Thomas would go? But that's for another time. For now, the mods have decided to put together an All-Time Fantasy Basketball Draft.
The rules are similar to that of the football draft:
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There are 6 mods drafting (Tako, Paul, Nick, David, Matt and Jeff)
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When you draft a player, you own the rights to every season he played. So we aren't drafting individual seasons
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You have to draft your starting 5 and 3 reserve players for your 8 man rotation. You don't have to draft starters first, but the player you draft has to have played that position at Oregon (so Tako is not allowed to take Tajuan Porter for his center spot)
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The draft order was chosen at random. Tako won the first pick, followed by PaulSF, ntrebon, David Piper, Matt Daddy, jcgoducks
- The order will progress snake style, so Jeff will get picks 6 and 7, Tako will get 12 and 13, etc.
- Once the draft is finished, we will set up a tournament where you, the reader, will get to vote on whose team would win on the field (or is just your favorite)
I'll post two rounds at a time but I'm not posting the draft conversation that accompanied it (you don't want to read all the Jeff has AOL jokes, trust me). The conversation is all yours, so make your claims on who has the best team.
Go Ducks!
Quack Fix: Baseball team sweeps again, T&F and golf prep for NCAA Championships, and softball stays undefeated in regionals
Cloaks slows you down in a fight. Makes you hard to move quietly, and the gold catches the light so you're nice and easy to spot at night. We had a deal and wearing a gold cloak wasn't part of it. You don't want me cleaning me nails, you don't want me looking you away. Why am I here? On to the quack:
- What a great spring for Duck sports. The track and field men's team won an unexpected 6th consecutive conference title and the women's team cruised to victory as well and are early favorites to win the National Championship as well. On top of all that the baseball team continues to cruise along as they swept the hapless Seattle Redhawks this weekend.
- Speaking of the baseball team, ESPN's Baseball Blog has the Ducks as the #2 overall seed in the tourney. This would mean not having to leave Eugene for the Ducks until they have to travel to Omaha for the college world series. Can't say enough about the job Horton and the Diamond Ducks have done this year.
- Ashton Eaton has some competition for the decathlon this summer, but expect that to continue in London.
- The Lady Diamond Ducks took full advantage of their home field by going undefeated and advancing to the Supers this weekend. The Ducks will now travel to Texas for the Super Regionals and a chance to play in the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City.
- They may not have won their regional, but even though they came up one shot short, the Men's Golf team advanced to the Finale in LA. The NCAA Championships are two weeks from now, and the fourth appearance for head coach Casey Martin in his six year tenure.
- Have I told you lately how much of a genius Larry Scott is? Well, he is a freaking wizard and the rest of the college football world and conference commissioners are trying desperately to gather scraps from his table just to catch up.
Lastly, let me say once again, what a pleasure it is to be associated with such an amazing group of Duck fans on ATQ. The other mods make it easy to get access to and information for so much Ducks information. The community on a whole gives me insight and enjoyment of what it means to be a Duck fan. I'm grateful that you allow me to impart a little of my whimsy and idiocracy into your daily lives. No community offers what ATQ does on a daily basis... now, if only we could do something about our female overlords.
Saturday Open Thread: Softball One Win from Super Regionals, Mens Golf and Baseball Also in Action
Busy day in Duck sports, and an important one for both women's softball and men's golf.
Men's golf kicks off the day bright and early, with Robbie Zeigler leading off for the Ducks at 8:40 AM eastern time, followed by Andrew Vijarro, Eugene Wong, Jonathan Woo, and finally Daniel Miernicki. The Ducks enter the third and final round of play trailing leader USC by one stroke, and tied with Kent State and TCU. The top five teams from each region advance to the NCAA Championships, and the Ducks have a seven-shot cushion on sixth-place Notre Dame. But man, it'd really be nice to beat the Trojans. Unless you're in Ann Arbor, MI, you won't be able to watch the action, but you can follow along with live stats HERE.
Part 2 of our Oregon sports trilogy taps at noon, when the Duck softball team takes on BYU at Howe Field. Oregon needs just one win to advance to the Super Regional round, while the Cougars need to win twice. The Ducks have already beaten BYU in this regional, notching a 6-4 win on Friday. Junior Jessica Moore will take the hill for Oregon, and will try to pitch them into their third consecutive Super Regional. In the event BYU wins the first game, the two teams would turn right around and play again. Also of note: Oregon is a perfect 8-0 in their last three regional rounds.
To finish off the day, Oregon baseball kicks off game two of a three-game series with Seattle University at 2 PM from PK Park. The Ducks send Jake Reed to the mound, who is coming off an effective last start against USC, in which he allowed two runs and four hits over seven innings. On Friday night, Alex Kuedell and Thomas Thorpe combined on a six-hit shutout, and Connor Hofmann hit his third home run of the year in a 6-0 Duck win.
You can tune in to both baseball and softball on O-Zone.
Enjoy your weekend, and Go Ducks!
Rumored SEC/Big 12 bowl means the age of the superconference is near
RT @McMurphyCBS: Champions of SEC & Big 12 will meet in a bowl if neither team in natl semis, sources told @CBSSports & @MrCFB
— SBN College Football (@SBNationCFB) May 18, 2012
It doesn't take a genius to figure out where this is leading. The Pac-12 and Big Ten have maintained that they want a playoff, but only if they can maintain the integrity of the Rose Bowl. The only way to do that is for the Rose Bowl to become one of the national semifinals. This SEC/Big 12 Bowl becomes the other. Only four conferences really matter. They pick off the valuable properties that are left (Florida State, Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, etc.). Those four conferences control everything, and college football is effectively split into two tiers.
It'll take a couple of years for all of this to play out, but its coming.
Viva la superconference.
Quack Fix: His Name is Colt Lyerla, Pac-12 Heisman Discussions, and Lift Big Eat Big
Our whole universe was in a hot dense state, Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait...The Earth began to cool, The autotrophs began to drool, Neanderthals developed tools, We built a wall (we built the pyramids), Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries, That all started with the big bang!
- Baseball is coming down to the last few weeks of the season and while George Horton may be preaching the whole "one game at a time" mantra, that doesn't mean that we, as fans, can't take a itty bitty peek at the scoreboard over the weekend. While Oregon hosts Seattle at PK Park, many eyes will be on Arizona as a Wildcat sweep over the USC Trojans would create a tie at the top between Oregon and Arizona. Exciting times for a program competing at the highest levels. Even though this series is big, let's remind ourselves that this is baseball and that there are a lot of games left. Six teams still have a shot at winning the Pac-12 crown.
- Moseley gives us some updates on women's basketball star Jasmin Holliday who spent some time overseas in China with Team USA.. Also, current assistant coach Keila Whittington is a candidate for the head coaching gig at Marshall. For more women's basketball updates, go check out the article.
- Although we will all miss (HIS NAME IS) David Paulson, Ted Miller points at that Tight End-U is alive and well with spring breakout star Colt Lyerla. Being called a "special athlete with a year of seasoning", we'd better start coming up with the memes.
- Heisman talk is always an important topic during this time of year and there appears to be 3 primary candidates coming into the season in Matt Barkley, De'Anthony Thomas and Keith Price. I know it's easy to pick on Washington but it's time to face it. Nick Holt is gone and they have seriously upgraded that position in the off-season. With a better defensive coaching job and another year under his belt, you have to look at Price as a potential darkhorse candidate coming out of the Pac-12, especially if UW starts off hot. My pick for the Heisman Trophy? Whomever has a great, final 2 weeks of the season because Luck was the odds on favorite going into last season and we all know how that turned out.
- Long before we were declaring people Sanchez, the Ducks had a Sanchez of their own. Davis Sanchez played one year for the Ducks back in the 90's and went on to a very successful, 11-year career in the CFL.
- Men's Golf opened with a respectable 5th-place finish in the opening round of the NCAA Central Regional. The second round opens at 8:20am EST today. I like golf but not enough to get up for a 5:20am tee time. Screw that.
- Fish Duck has a nice interview up with former Oregon footballer Reggie Ogburn.

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