NCAA Tournament Opens At Home Friday
12/02/22 | Women's Volleyball, @GoDucksMoseley
Oregon hosts Loyola Marymount on Friday at open the NCAA Tournament at 7 p.m.
The last season in which the Oregon volleyball program won 14 straight matches, the Ducks made it all the way to the Final Four. A decade later, those milestones could be in reach again.
The Ducks will open the 2022 NCAA Tournament on Friday when they host Loyola Marymount in Matthew Knight Arena at 7 p.m., following a matchup between Arkansas and Utah State at 4 p.m. Having set a program record with 17 wins in Pac-12 play this fall, Oregon brings a 13-match win streak into the postseason, the Ducks' longest since the 2012 Final Four team and also the 2010 team began their seasons by going 14-0.
The disappointment of last season's first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Kansas still looms large for the Ducks. But so too does the high level they've played at throughout the current season.
"We know we're not invincible," UO coach Matt Ulmer said. "But we know if we play our best, we have a shot against everybody."
The Ducks (23-5) came into 2022 dreaming of their first ever Pac-12 title, and took a step toward that goal with a resounding sweep of perennial conference power Stanford at home on Sept. 25. That ended up being the Cardinal's only loss in conference play, while Oregon's only hiccup was a three-match losing streak in mid-October when setter Hannah Pukis was sidelined by an injury – and, more significantly, when the UO women endured an uncharacteristic stretch of poor play from the service line.
But Oregon got back to its winning ways at UCLA on Oct. 16, kicking off what is now a 13-match win streak entering Friday night. The Ducks boast the newly crowned Pac-12 freshman of the year in hitter Mimi Colyer, a do-everything senior star in Brooke Nuneviller and a roster of complementary pieces that have made practices every bit as competitive as games this season.
"We're a really mature team; they're super calm, they've been through this," Colyer said of Oregon's veterans. "So I feel like I'm kind of just feeding off that. So I personally don't think I have a bunch of nerves – but I'm excited to start playing."
Nuneviller was a freshman on Oregon's 2018 Elite Eight team. She knows the elation of having helped the Ducks upset host Minnesota in the Sweet 16 of that tournament, and also the disappointment of a Sweet 16 loss in the spring of 2021 to Purdue, not to mention the disheartening sweep at the hands of Kansas in the first round last fall.
Throughout their sustained success this season, the Ducks have spoken about staying in the moment, and taking each match point by point. During postseason appearances last year, Nuneviller said, they lost that focus and started thinking about the big picture.
"We put a lot more pressure on ourselves when we do that," Nuneviller said. "Something we've done a really good job of is, no matter who's on the other side of the net, we're going to handle things the same way. It really just depends on what we're doing, on our side of the court."
That's not to say Oregon won't prepare for its opponents' tendencies; Ulmer said Loyola Marymount does things both offensively and defensively that the Ducks didn't see much in the Pac-12. So practice Wednesday morning addressed some of those tendencies.
But Thursday was all about the Ducks, and preparing to do what they want to do at a high level.
"I like a lot of things we're going; I think it's things that are going to set us up for success in the tournament," Ulmer said. "Now we just have to go out and execute."
The Ducks haven't been perfect during their 13-match win streak, but they've risen to the occasion time and again. They swept No. 19 Washington at home on Nov. 4, came back from down two sets to beat Colorado on the road a week later, then posted a second reverse sweep in 10 days at home against USC on Nov. 20.
"The grittiest teams make it the farthest," Nuneviller said. "And you've seen this team be very gritty throughout the season."
That helped Oregon earn the right to host this weekend of tournament play, which wraps up Saturday evening at 7 p.m. with a match between Friday's two winners for a spot in the Sweet 16 next week.
"We love playing in M.K.A.," UO senior Gloria Mutiri said. "You can tell, because we've been undefeated here. Just the fans and the crowd, and them always getting into it, and seeing all the green and yellow --- yeah, I'm excited to see this place ready for the tournament."
Mutiri, Nuneviller and Karson Bacon were honored on Senior Day last week, when the Ducks wrapped the regular season with a sweep of Oregon State. For Nuneviller, a career that's likely to include four all-America honors is nearing its end – although hopefully not for a few more weeks.
"I don't think that's hit me quite yet," she said. "I'm really trying to stay in the moment. I'm trying to enjoy every single day of working with these incredible individuals, these incredible coaches and our staff. I'm sure it will hit as we go farther in the tournament. But we're just taking it one game at a time, and seeing what happens from there."
