The Duck Report is Sponsored By:

Two years into the conference realignment shift that rocked the college sports landscape, it seems we’ve come to begrudgingly accept some of the absurdities of it all.

Does it make sense that many schools have swapped regional rivalries and logical travel schedules for the almighty dollar?

Well, I guess that depends on who you ask.

However, every now and then we’re blessed with a story that reinforces that, no, we’re not the crazy ones.

Take the recent Atlantic Coast Conference baseball tournament, which this week featured a single-elimination matchup between former Pac-12 rivals Stanford and Cal.

That’s two schools, separated by 40 miles in California, traveling 2,000-plus miles by air to face each other in Charlotte, North Carolina. Stanford won 11-4, sending Cal home. The next day, the Cardinal joined them after falling 11-2 to Miami.

Now, it’s not just the ACC. Oregon is getting a smaller taste of bizarro world tonight as well when the Ducks take on Washington in Omaha, Neb., in the Big Ten Tournament.

It’s not quite as bad: This is the quarterfinals, and Washington has already played two games. But Oregon, which earned a bye into the round by finishing third in regular-season play, still faces the possibility of taking a long flight just to be sent home by the team up the street.

Couldn’t we just do this all on Zoom?

‘There’s definitely a lot of good that came out of it’

Credit: Tyson Alger

To put it mildly, the past week is not how Lyndsey Grein would have planned it.

Had she been in control, Grein would have been in the circle last weekend as Oregon softball tried to advance out of the Eugene Regional of the NCAA tournament.

Instead, days before she was set to pitch, the Oregon senior quickly learned she had no say over what came next.

We caught up with Grein this week to talk about the eye injury that took away her postseason, and the perspective she gained from a situation that has now given her an “odd sense of peace.”

Black Student-Athlete Summit hits Eugene

Denali Duncan, a recent graduate from Florida A&M, was one of more than 700 people who came to Eugene for this week’s Black Student-Athlete Summit. Credit: Tyson Alger

Denali Duncan arrived in Oregon this week for the first time in his life while, as he described it, living in “the grey zone.”

Duncan is an athlete — or at least he was one. He grew up in Tampa and played two years of junior college basketball at Hillsborough Community College before finishing his psychology degree earlier this month at Florida A&M University.

He came to Eugene this week for the Black Student-Athlete Summit, a three-day event that began in 2015 and is bringing more than 700 student-athletes and speakers to town. He just didn’t know exactly what he wanted out of it.

It didn’t take long to start figuring that out, though.

A vote of confidence in the ‘pen

Oregon reliever Devin Bell allowed no runs and struck out seven in four innings of relief. Credit: Deborah Mundorff/GoDucks.com

Mark Wasikowski’s answer came quickly.

After Oregon lost its series finale on May 10 at UCLA, the Ducks baseball coach was asked whether he was concerned about his bullpen.

The crew had just allowed five runs in 3⅓ innings in the 9-6 loss — a performance that came two days after the bullpen allowed five runs in three innings in an 11-1 loss.

“No,” Wasikowski said. “No. UCLA is a really good team.”

He didn’t feel he needed to elaborate further. The Bruins were No. 1 in the nation, and that weekend, his arms just didn’t have it.

Now, as college baseball progresses into the postseason — the Ducks begin the Big Ten Tournament on Friday in Omaha, Nebraska, and will learn their place in the NCAA baseball field of 64 on Monday — a bad stretch from the pen can doom a season.

The opposite is also true.

A week after Wasikowski’s vote of confidence, Oregon’s relievers showed what that can look like.

INSIDE look
GoDucks.com photo

We usually reserve this spot for the athletes, but Jerry Schumacher’s track and field teams are on a bit of a heater. The Ducks swept the team titles at last week’s Big Ten Outdoor Championships in Lincoln, Neb., which led to Schumacher being named the 2026 Big Ten Men’s and Women’s Coach of the Year. 

Between cross country, indoor and outdoor, the Oregon men and women have won 10 of 12 Big Ten Championships since joining the conference.

camera roll
A quick shoutout to Owen Murray, who filled in last week with our coverage of the Eugene Regional so I could check off a bucket-list item: covering the Timbers’ first game against Lionel Messi, who is somewhere down there in pink.

Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here to receive The Duck Report every Thursday in your inbox.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I think the biggest lesson from this whole past week is, ‘Hey, as much as you want to be in control, you’re not.’”
— Oregon senior pitcher Lyndsey Grein

UPCOMING GAMES
  • Baseball vs. Washington • Big Ten Tournament • 7 p.m. • Friday
STORIES I’m WORKING ON

I sat down with UO grad Bill Cornog, the new owner of the Sporting Cascades FC USL League One soccer team that is set to launch in 2027.

The Duck Report is Sponsored By:

Do you have story ideas or tips? Send them my way — tyson@lookoutlocal.com.

Download the Lookout Eugene-Springfield app in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Our content isn’t possible without community support, so if you’re not already, please consider becoming a Lookout member.

Have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend,

Tyson

Tyson Alger covered the Ducks for The Oregonian and The Athletic before branching out on his own to create and run The I-5 Corridor. He brings more than a decade of experience on the University of Oregon sports beat. He has covered everything from Marcus Mariota’s Heisman Trophy-winning season to the Ducks’ first year in the Big 10.