Charles Fischer

Thanks for the insights savage--we appreciate it!

Tournament will bring Gonzaga, UCLA, Saint Mary's... and an Opportunity. Gonzaga is the No. 1 overall seed in the men’s NCAA Tournament bracket and will play at Moda Center. I flew into Portland International Airport on Sunday afternoon, noted the green trees and clean air. The scenery got even better later in the day when the men’s NCAA Tournament bracket was revealed. Biggest winner: Portland. The first and second round games at Moda Center on Thursday and Saturday will feature some of the most interesting and fun basketball teams in the country. I love the match-ups in Portland more than any opening-round site in the tournament. WEST REGIONAL - Saturday No. 1 Gonzaga v No. 16 Georgia State No. 8 Boise State v No. 9 Memphis EAST REGIONAL - Saturday No. 5 Saint Mary’s v No. 12 Wyoming-Indiana winner No. 4 UCLA v No. 13 Akron Portland not only landed the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament (Gonzaga), it also got a fun Pac-12 team (UCLA) coming off a Final Four appearance in 2021 and very dangerous Saint Mary’s. There’s also a juicy potential second-round match-up on Saturday between Mark Few’s Gonzaga squad and Boise State, led by long-time Few disciple Leon Rice. They’ve never coached a game against each other. Portland has suffered a well-documented public relations beat down in the last couple of years. City leadership has some heavy lifting to do when it comes to homelessness, mental illness, garbage clean-up, enforcement of laws, etc. The optics and narrative have been detrimental and clobbered the city’s brand. As I exited Airport Way and turned onto Interstate-205 on Sunday I saw a burned out RV parked alongside the freeway ramp and several tarps, piles of garbage and two other abandoned vehicles just beyond that. These are among the first images visitors will see as they fly in for NCAA Tournament games. Every big city has problems. Ours are fixable and I’m not here to pile on. Just pointing out that Portland has a massive opportunity this week to collect some wins. Can sports help fix a city’s broken brand? Absolutely. SportOregon CEO Jim Etzel is trying to land a future women’s NCAA Tournament Final Four. The Portland Diamond Project wants to bring a Major League Baseball team to our city. NASCAR’s Xfinity Series is coming to Portland in June and Worlds of Sport will take over the Oregon Convention Center for its inaugural fan-facing event on Father’s Day weekend. On Sunday, as the men’s NCAA Tournament bracket was revealed on CBS during the nationally televised Selection Show I couldn’t help but notice the on-air crew talking repeatedly about “Portland” in favorable terms. It was sweet music, wasn’t it? Gonzaga is coming to Portland. UCLA, too. Their fans and those of Saint Mary’s and Boise State are booking flights, hotel rooms, making reservations at restaurants and buying tickets for the games at Moda Center. They’re all delighted to be coming to our city. Oregon was assigned a No. 5-seed in the women’s NCAA Tournament and will play No. 12 Belmont. FAMILY BUSINESS: I was rooting for the University of Oregon women’s basketball program to either host an opening-round game in Eugene or get assigned to an NCAA Tournament site within a quick plane trip of Portland. Why? Will Graves, the youngest son of Ducks’ coach Kelly Graves, is a 6-foot-5 guard on the Gonzaga roster. Last season, the elder Graves scrambled to Indianapolis for the men’s Elite Eight and Final Four after his team was eliminated in the Sweet 16 of the women’s tournament. This season he also attended a game in Spokane to see Gonzaga play. Sunday’s bracket reveal didn’t go Graves’ way, though. Gonzaga was assigned to Portland on the men’s side. But later in the day the Ducks received the No. 5 seed in the Wichita Region of the women’s tournament. UO and Graves will face No. 12 seed Belmont in the opening round on Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn. MARCH MADNESS POOL: My annual NCAA Tournament Bracket Challenge is officially open. Join my special “John Canzano Group” on ESPN’s fantasy sports website. Fill out your best NCAA Tournament bracket and let’s have some fun. The rules: No entry fee. One bracket per person. All are welcome. Prizes to the top-three finishers. Good luck. Feel free to share this post with friends and family member. Let’s see how many of you can beat me. # This is a reader-supported newsletter with both free and paid subscriptions. Those who opt for the paid edition are taking an active role in the content by providing vital assistance to bolster my independent coverage. Feel free to forward this post to family and friends and please consider becoming a paid subscriber to have full access to all of my posts. Subscribe now Like Comment Share You’re a free subscriber to Bald Faced Truth by John Canzano. For the full experience, become a paid subscriber. Subscribe © 2022 John Canzano Unsubscribe PO Box 219 Marylhurst, OR 97036

To me, this article and what I learned explains so much of what Coach Lanning was telling us and why. Thanks Coach!

(Oregon Athletics Press Release) EUGENE, Ore. — The Oregon men's basketball team earned the No. 5 seed to the 2022 National Invitation Tournament and will travel to face fourth-seeded Utah State on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the opening round. The game will air on ESPN. The Ducks went 19-14 in the regular season, finishing 11-9 in Pac-12 games. Utah State finished 18-15 and 8-10 in the Mountain West. This is the sixth meeting between the teams and first since 1965. Oregon leads the all-time series 3-2. Oregon last played in the NIT in 2018 and holds an overall record of 14-12 in 11 NIT appearances. The Ducks have reached the NIT Final Four in New York on three occasions: 1975, 1999 and 2004.

Take note of all the emotions this article pulls up from within you as a devoted Duck fan, and share them with me. I could not decide if I was aghast or delighted as I read it! Game Day Skull Session: Get Dumped Then, Oregon WWW.ELEVENWARRIORS.COM It's a bad day to be an Oregon Duck. Really?

EUGENE, Ore. – Oregon earned its fifth straight NCAA Tournament bid and 17th in school history Sunday as it received the No. 5 seed in the Wichita Region. The Ducks will face No. 12 seed Belmont in the opening round on Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn. This will be the first-ever meeting between the two programs. “I’ve been doing this for a long time and even though we’ve known we were going to be in the tournament there’s always something magical about hearing your name called,” said head coach Kelly Graves. “We’re excited to be playing and hope to go down and play our best.” Oregon finished the regular season 20-11 and 11-6 in Pac-12 play, finishing the year second in the overall league standings. The Ducks picked up back-to-back wins over top-10 teams in Matthew Knight Arena in January, knocking off then-No. 7 Arizona, 68-66 in overtime, before blowing out then-No.9 and current No. 6 UConn, 72-59. UO had its Pac-12 Tournament run end in the semifinals, losing to Utah, 80-73 in the semifinals after beating UCLA, 63-60, in the quarterfinal round. Oregon beat 10 of the 12 Pac-12 teams at least once during the season, as the only teams the Ducks did not beat were No. 2 Stanford, who UO lost to twice, in addition to a loss at Colorado in the only meeting between the two schools this year. The Ducks also knocked off Oklahoma during the regular season, winning 98-93 on Nov. 20 in The Bahamas, playing without starting guards Te-Hina Paopao and Endyia Rogers. Oregon has played 10 teams that are in the NCAA Tournament field.

I can live with that, because it is a case of "good-or-good." Nice post, and thanks for being reasonable.

My friends....you gotta hide your surprise, I mean, what did you think was going to happen? And now it is....you are surprised? We have a small window of the "old" college football, and I am going to enjoy it while I can.

Canzano: A Big Loss for Oregon When it Comes to Law, Gambling and College Sports Bill that would allow wagering on college basketball is blocked. Peter Courtney called me the other day. He’s the 78-year old soon-to-be-retired president of the Oregon Senate and he telephoned with some bad news. “I failed,” he said. Senate Bill 1503 would have allowed the Oregon Lottery to conduct gambling opportunities based on the outcomes of college sports games. Currently in Oregon you can legally wager on the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA and a variety of other sporting events including darts, go-karts and cricket but what you can’t do is place a bet on a college sporting event. No college football games. No March Madness. Today is “Selection Sunday” and NCAA Tournament brackets will be released. The sports books in Las Vegas will tell you the first and second round tournament games run nose-to-nose with the Super Bowl when it comes to revenue generated. “There’s nothing else close to those two,” said Jay Kornegay, head of the WestGate SuperBook. “The Super Bowl is a much more mature, older crowd. March Madness? It’s a frat party. It’s a different clientele. We’ve got to store up on light beer, bacon and burgers.” Courtney’s bill died. It would have used revenue from wagering on collegiate sporting events to provide scholarships and grants for low-income university students. The proposed law ran into opposition from anti-gambling lobbyists and the tribal casinos, which called for a task force and a commissioned study instead. A study? A task force? “It’s political code for ‘Kill the bill. Kill the bill,’” Courtney said. “These studies drive me crazy. These task forces drive me crazy. I didn’t come here to do a study, I came here to vote and make public policy. That’s exactly what that was. They came at me hard and they beat me. I lost. I got beat. I’m really down about that.” Anyone who has ever spent time around Courtney knows he’s a firecracker. Talking with him is like opening a fresh box of fireworks on the Fourth of July. You pull one out, look it over, light it, and you’re not quite sure what is going to happen until it’s happening — but man it’s never boring. Courtney is a die-hard sports fan. I’ve heard from him over the years. He lamented once on National Signing Day that he wished more in-state high school kids would get football scholarships from Oregon and Oregon State. Another time he phoned me to rail about Tom Brady’s departure from New England and when Mario Cristobal left the Ducks for Miami last December the lawmaker roasted me for not being tougher on the departing coach. Said Courtney: “Cristobal, Chip Kelly, Willie Taggart — don’t even get me started on coaches and loyalty.” This was Courtney’s final session in office. He’s the longest serving lawmaker in state history. After 38 years he’s retiring and will spend more time with his wife, Margie. We spoke at length last week in a podcast interview and he was entertaining, authentic and informative. What does Courtney know now that he wishes he’d known when he was younger? “There is such a thing as wisdom. My grandmother — God I loved my grandmother, she helped raise me — she used to sit at the foot of my bed and say, ‘Peter Peter Peter Peter… it’s not as bad as you think it is.’” Is he nostalgic about retiring? “I don’t get into that. I don’t celebrate it. I don’t get remorseful. I don’t want to talk about it. To me, life is hell, then you die. That’s just another example of hell. Hook the plow up to me and one day I’ll be out there and drop dead. I can’t deal with it.” How does he handle goodbyes? “I don’t like goodbyes. I’m not up at the podium crying. I’m not crying. I know how to work. That’s all I know — work, work, work. I’m not up there being sentimental. I’m not into all that gooey stuff.” In our talk, Courtney kept coming back to Senate Bill 1503. He’s had a lot of wins in his career. He’s been an advocate for children and animals, particularly. But going out with a loss on the college gambling bill bothered him. “We could have done something big time to create a major fund for children who don’t have a lot of money. So when they go to college they won’t come out so in debt they can’t afford a house or car,” he said. The NCAA Tournament first and second round games will begin this week. I won’t think of them without wondering if there’s another state lawmaker willing to step in after Courtney retires to keep fighting and introduce legislation in the next session that would allow wagering on college games. He tried. Said Courtney: “The idea is you introduce a bill and you’re lucky if you get half a loaf. I’ve learned years ago I’ll settle for a slice. I couldn’t even get a slice. I’m not happy about it.”

Can you blame him? A junior in high school who has not contributed a thing yet to a college team is signed for 8 million? REPORT: Florida State DB Becomes First College Player To Hold Out Due To Lack Of NIL Deal WWW.TOTALPROSPORTS.COM Read “REPORT: Florida State DB Becomes First College Player To Hold Out Due To Lack Of NIL Deal ” and other Football, NCAA articles from Total Pro Sports. I want my MONEY FOR NOTHING!

My FishDuck Friends, for all the frustrating victories that Stanford has over Oregon....this one really stings them. The ERA of the Cardinal pitching staff was unreal, below 2.00 each coming into this series, and they were ranked between No. 2 and No. 5 on the different polls after beating No. 2 Arkansas last week. You could see the cockiness they had in their body language as, "this is just Oregon." I am floored at the player growth between the pitching and hitting. Down 9-3 and winning the game? That never happens, and this batting line-up believes in Coach Waz and what they can do. Heck...I checked out at 9-3, and came back just in time to see the comeback. This team is on a growth track....whew! I have more to say, but believe in this team! Comeback Gives Ducks Series Win Over No. 2 Stanford STANFORD, Calif. — Oregon battled back from a six-run third-inning deficit to hand Stanford a 16-13 loss and clinch the series win on Saturday at Sunken Diamond. The Ducks’ six through nine hitters in the order combined for nine hits, 12 RBI and nine runs scored in the win. Junior second baseman Gavin Grant, who went 3-for-5 with a career-high four RBI, had a two-out RBI triple to pull the Ducks within one in the fifth inning before delivering a two-out, three-RBI double in the top of the eighth to cap Oregon’s six-run inning and give the Ducks a 14-9 lead. “It was nice, just staying simple and staying with my approach,” Grant said. “Low through the middle. It worked today, just keep grinding and keep going.” Catcher Jack Scanlon has been a batting liability until recently... Sophomore catcher Jack Scanlon, who went 2-for-4 with three runs scored and matched a career high with four RBI, hit a huge three-run home run in the top of the second to give the Ducks life before driving in a crucial eighth-inning run with a bases loaded hit-by-pitch. “I’m just trying to do whatever I can to help my team out,” Scanlon said. “It just so happened to be a home run. I’m lucky that it was. It doesn’t matter how ugly it is, a win is a win.” How It Happened: Stanford didn’t waste any time jumping on Oregon starter Isaac Ayon. The first four batters reached on hits, with three of those going for extra bases. Carter Graham capped the scoring with a three-run home run to give the Cardinal a 4-0 lead after one. Oregon answered quickly in the top of the second. Scanlon blasted a 3-run home run over the scoreboard in right-center field to cut the lead to one. Anthony Hall started the rally, moving to third on a Sam Novitske single down the third-base line. Stanford (8-5, 0-2 Pac-12) responded with four runs in its half of the inning. Ayon surrendered three straight walks to lead off the inning and the Cardinal took advantage. Graham ran his RBI total to five on the day with a two-run double, while Kody Huff and Braden Montgomery both delivered RBI singles. Huff drove in another run in the third for a 9-3 lead. Oregon got one back in the fourth. Scanlon reached on his second hit of the day with one out, before moving to second on a Grant hit and third on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Tanner Smith. Scanlon then scored on a wild pitch to cut the lead to 9-4. Oregon’s bullpen slowed the Cardinal offense giving the Ducks a chance to come back. Logan Mercado tossed two scoreless innings, while Rio Britton added 1.2 innings without allowing a run. That’s all the Oregon (10-5, 2-0 Pac-12) offense would need. The Ducks cut the lead to one with a four-run fifth inning. Brennan Milone reached base on a Cardinal error to lead off the inning. After a strikeout, Josh Kasevich walked to put runners at first and third. Anthony Hall plated both Milone and Kasevich with a two-RBI double before moving to third on a fielding error by Stanford right fielder Braden Montgomery. Sam Novitske followed with a RBI single to cut the lead to 9-8. Neither team scored in the sixth or seventh, before Oregon broke it open with a six-run eighth inning while sending 10 batters to the plate. Smith singled to lead off the inning and moved to second on a Colby Shade sacrifice bunt. After Milone walked, freshman Jacob Walsh tied the game scoring Smith with a RBI single. The Ducks took the lead when the next hitter, Kasevich singled to plate Milone. Anthony Hall Hall walked to load the bases, and after a fielder’s choice forced Walsh at home, Scanlon picked up a RBI with a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch. Grant broke it open with a three-run double to give Oregon a 14-9 lead. The Ducks added two insurance runs in the top of the ninth. Kasevich struck out which should have ended the inning, but the ball got away from Stanford catcher Kody Huff who then threw the ball off Kasevich for an error allowing Shade to score from second. Hall picked up his third RBI with a single scoring Kasevich. Box Score Notes: Oregon scored double-digit runs for the sixth time this season … The Ducks clinched a Pac-12 opening series win for the fifth time in the last 14 seasons … The series win marks the third time the Ducks have opened the Pac-12 season with a road series win joining the 2013 (at USC) and 2017 teams (at California) … Oregon has never gone 3-0 in a Pac-12 opening series, home or away … Every Duck starter had at least one hit, with six having multi-hit games including Grant’s team-best three hits … Seven of Oregon’s starters scored a run with one scoring two runs and four others scoring three runs … Six of the nine starters drove in at least one run, with Grant and Scanlon leading the way with four RBI and Hall added three … Britton (2-0) picked up his second win of the season … Mercado had a season-high three Ks. Up Next: Oregon will look for the series sweep with the Ducks and Cardinal meet at 12:05 on Sunday.

"He's a guy that can be sideline to sideline, has the athleticism of a defensive back but has the physicality of a linebacker." There is more to this article... "I'm not a guy that wants a bunch of yes men around me." (Referring to the assistant coaches) Whew! He is not from the Mario Cristobal school of managing! My friends...there is SO MUCH in this article that is so different from what we've heard from the last number of coaches, that it makes my head spin. This is BIG TIME... What Oregon Ducks Football Head Coach Dan Lanning Said After Spring Practice No. 2 - Sports Illustrated Oregon Ducks News, Analysis and More WWW.SI.COM The full transcript from Lanning's press conference on Saturday Good gosh, I love so much of what I read here!

I've had tons of feedback from people who are grateful to have this site post articles so they do not have to check nine sites, and that is why we do it! (And to start some great discussions, of course) 1) We do not have enough people to post them all, but we are trying to get the major ones posted in this forum to save everyone a ton of time chasing them all down. 2) Tons of sites are posting the same game recap, or the same practice report and we are not going to post 17 articles stating the same stuff. We will post one, and sometimes two of new items are being covered in the second one. 3) There are some sites, (like Ducks Wire) that have an interesting article title, but when you click on it--they have quotes from something you read the other day and they wrote some blah-blah nonsense about it get you to click. They fooled us, but no need to fool all of you; we don't post those articles here! 4) Do make sure that your article has not already been posted...you may have just saw it elsewhere before checking the OBD forum. 5) We do not post every "update" of a recruiting visit or who Oregon is offering, as we would be flooding the forum with articles that largely all say the same thing. "Amazing visit!" 6) Can you help? We have a specific way of doing it, but it doesn't take long and everything is done for the ease of the reader. Are you retired and can spare a 20 minute period to help this No-Charge All-Volunteer site? Email me charles@fishduck.com

Double that thanks!

Unbelievable. Ducks win 16-13 after being down 9-3 for the longest time. They take the series as this is a massive win! More when I receive the press release later!

That score remains at 9-8 after 5 innings, and Logan Mercado, the Ducks reliever, got a strike-out with bases loaded and starting with a 3-0 count. Whew!

And Axel lifts my day again with a smile...

The guy who was hitting .095 (yeah, you saw that right) stunned everyone as Jack Scanlon hit a three-run homer to make it 4-3!

Not a bad spot to entertain recruits...

Whoops! The rain started at about 1:45 PM...

The weather report for Eugene was 90% chance of rain both days this weekend, and cloudy the rest of the time. Friday was sunny and bright ... and this morning is the same! At minimum--this helps the recruits see Oregon "in a better light." Hopefully it will hold up through today's practice! Hours before the 2018 Spring Game... (Eugene looks like this now!)

The two tight ends do not have the same number, as it was an error in writing the article. Go to the GoDucks.com link I provided...

The continued growth and improvement of this team impresses me so much with the coaching. Pitching that was sketchy and unreliable last year has improved as pitching kept us in this game, and the new more powerful batting won it for us. Great to see Tanner Smith getting back-on-track to where he was last year, and great to see Anthony Hall coming out of his slump and returning to last year's form. Add these to battling lineup we had and the result is an overall stronger line-up than last year, I believe. A lot of season to go, but I love what I see!

This article was sent to me via his free subscription, and I cannot pull up his site as I could the other day, so since it was free to me--I will present it to you. John has already indicated in emails that he will be going to subscription and would appreciate donations to support local sports journalism. Canzano: Betting the Pac-12 Conference will build its empire in Las Vegas Pac-12 CEO Group meets today to discuss relocating headquarters. LAS VEGAS — The chancellors and presidents of the Pac-12 Conference universities will gather today along with commissioner George Kliavkoff in a secluded meeting space at the Park MGM Hotel and Casino. Among the agenda items for the Pac-12 CEO Group: The relocation of the conference headquarters. The offices and television network of the conference are currently located on two floors in a downtown San Francisco commercial building. Rent paid over the last 11 years: $92 million. The Big Ten spent less than $15 million on its Chicago-based headquarters during the same period. The SEC, which has a sweetheart deal with a booster, only pays $1 a year for its offices in Birmingham, Ala. The SEC’s motto: “It just means more.” Should be: “It costs less.” I think the Pac-12 will soon vote to move to Las Vegas. Here’s why: Las Vegas is easy to access to from the various Pac-12 campuses. It’s already the host site of the conference’s championships in football and basketball. Office space is far more affordable than the Bay Area or Los Angeles. City officials in Las Vegas will also woo the conference with breaks and subsidies in much the same way it did with the NFL, NHL and Major League Baseball. Kliavkoff is a central figure in all of this, of course. The 55-year old previously worked in Las Vegas as the MGM Resorts president of entertainment and sports and sat on the board of BetMGM, one of the largest sports-wagering companies on the planet. Nobody will forget the excesses of Kliavkoff’s predecessor, Larry Scott. A couple of years ago during this same week of basketball and meetings Scott bunked in the $7,500-a-night SkyVilla hotel suite at Aria. This week I asked Kliavkoff where he was staying. “Are you kidding?” he shot back. “I’m sleeping at my house.” No charge to the Pac-12. The Pac-12 Conference headquarters has been located in downtown San Francisco since 2011. I like Kliavkoff’s work, so far. I think he’s intelligent, experienced, connected and has big-city ideas. I also think — down deep — he’s a fighter who isn’t afraid of a good scrap. His preferred weapon in a debate is more scalpel than sledgehammer, but I suspect he’s not afraid to use either. He sparred some with media this week and one of his staff members commented afterward, “I think George enjoys it.” Kliavkoff is here for the meetings and the men’s and women’s conference tournaments. But he was questioned during a news conference about his College Football Playoff expansion strategy. The Pac-12 voted “no” in the most recent vote, standing in alliance with the Big Ten and ACC. “So as far as I'm concerned, the time to publicly talk about the CFP is now over,” Kliavkoff said. “I think the next piece of work that needs to be done is we need to get in the room and figure out what the expanded playoffs look like. Unless I'm forced to publicly talk about it, the next time I talk about the CFP will be to announce what our new format looks like.” Who wouldn’t want that guy on their side? Also, why wouldn’t the Pac-12 want to leverage his deep Las Vegas connections and parlay that into lucrative opportunities? Said University of Oregon president Michael Schill: “He’s just the right person to lead us through this extremely challenging period.” Las Vegas has positioned itself as a sports destination. It pried the Raiders from Oakland, launched the NHL’s Golden Knights, is in pursuit of MLB and NBA franchises, and hosted 10 different college basketball tournaments within a walk of The Strip in the last two weeks. “There's more than 100 college basketball games in this town,” Kliavkoff said. “I've been fortunate to go to a couple of games that were not part of our tournament over the last couple of days, and it just is becoming the sports capital, and I think people are realizing that.” That $92 million spent in the last 11 years on rent meant less money for each of the conference members. Also, that expense became a morale issue for those trying to make budgets work on the campuses, particularly during a pandemic. Said one sitting athletic director: “We all could have used that revenue.” The Pac-12 needs a new home. Everyone can see that. Las Vegas feels like the right city. The only question is whether the presidents and chancellors might consider splintering off the Pac-12 Network and putting a small studio and satellite office in the Bay Area, Phoenix or Southern California, where larger pools of available television-world contractors reside. Kliavkoff wouldn’t go there when I about it. But he did tell me this week, “We've actually started negotiations.” He wouldn’t say much more. Didn’t have to. The answer was beneath his feet. Thanks for being here. This is reader-supported journalism, with both free and paid subscriptions, and those who opt for the paid edition are taking an important role in the content. Your assistance bolsters my independent coverage. Feel free to forward this post to family and friends and please consider becoming a paid subscriber to have full access to all of my columns and posts. You’re a free subscriber to Bald Faced Truth by John Canzano. For the full experience, become a paid subscriber. 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