Quack Fix: Joseph Young Guarantees Tournament Bid

Before we get into the morning links it was announced last night that student-athlete, Lauren Jones, passed away. It is a very sad day for the Oregon community and our thoughts and prayers are with Lauren's family.

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Joseph Young says that Oregon will be in the NCAA tournament.

"We're going to the tournament," Young said after practice. Oregon has two final games at MKA and the Ducks will need to protect home court if they want to make good on Young's statement. Oregon is the favorite tonight, they play Colorado at 8 p.m. on ESPNU. The Ducks will then have a few days off and will play against Utah on Sunday at noon. The game against Utah will also be senior night and will honor both Young and Jalil Abdul-Bassit.

The interesting recruitment of De'Anthony Thomas.

This is an insider piece, but the mothership made a list of the five most interesting recruitments in the Pac-12 and the Black Mamba made the list. The Los Aneles native was favored to go to USC and even committed to the Trojans. We all know how this fairy tale ended as DAT ended up a Duck and was one of the most electric players in Oregon history.

Marcus Mariota will throw at the combine.

The combine is this weekend and Mariota has decided that he will throw at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mariota will take the field on Saturday to throw in front of all 32 NFL teams. The other positions that will be competing that day with the quarterbacks are the running backs and wide receivers. This won't be Mariota's only chance to throw in front of scouts, Oregon's pro day will be on March 19.

College basketball attendance is declining.

The Pac-12 hasn't been very strong this year. The conference will probably send four teams at max and that is two less than what they sent last season. Attendance over the last few years has also dropped: in 2008 the average attendance for a Pac-12 game was 8,940 people and over halfway through this season the average attendance per game has dropped to 7,193.