Oregon baseball's Mark Wasikowski named Big Ten Coach of the Year
Oregon baseball coach Mark Wasikowski was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year by his fellow coaches Tuesday morning after the Ducks captured the conference regular season crown.
The Ducks went 22-8 in conference play and 41-13 overall as they will be the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten tournament this week in Omaha. This is the first time Wasikowski has been named Coach of the Year during his six seasons at Oregon. He makes it a clean sweep on the diamond as Oregon's softball coach, Melyssa Lombardi, was also given the award last week. It's quite the achievement for the Ducks in just their first season in the Big Ten.
Besides Wasikowski being honored, five Oregon players were named to the conference First Team and four others were named to the Third Team.
Friday night ace Grayson Grinsell, closer Seth Maddox, first baseman Jacob Walsh, outfielder Mason Neville and second baseman Ryan Cooney were the Ducks' First-Teamers. Headlining the Third Team is designated hitter Dominic Hellman, shortstop Maddox Molony, outfielder Anson Aroz, and starting pitcher Jason Reitz.
Catcher Burke-Lee Mabeus was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman team as well.
Grinsell led the Ducks on the mound, going 9-2 with a 2.33 earned run average. Seth Maddox ended the regular season with a 2.60 ERA and seven saves.
On the offensive side, Neville was the guy for the Ducks with his NCAA-leading and program single-season mark of 26 home runs and 56 runs batted in. Walsh, the program overall leader in round-trippers with 59 total, also dramatically improved his batting average to .344 and 59 RBI.
Cooney, who hit eighth in the order for much of the season, managed to hit .341 and drive in 47 runs.
The Ducks will attempt to make it a double championship season as they open the conference tournament on Thursday with Michigan State. The Spartans starting lefty, Joseph Dzierwa, was the Pitcher of the Year. UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky won Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The Big Ten could be proposing a massive expansion to the College Football Playoff
While we just finished the first season of a 12-team College Football Playoff, where Notre Dame went to the championship game, the Big Ten is starting to have ideas of a bigger expansion. There has already been chatter of expanding the field to 16-teams, with the Big Ten and SEC being the main benefactors of that move. On Saturday, the conference looks like they might be laying the groundwork for an even bigger expansion, either 24 for 28 teams reports ESPN's Pete Thamel. The potential proposal would see the elimination of conference title games, giving more automatic bids to power conferences, and just two at-large bids. This clearly would not be the best case for the Irish, as both the Big Ten and SEC would have 7 bids, with the ACC and Big 12 each getting five. It would have the Group of Five teams getting an extra bid as well, but it might not make a difference at all of Notre Dame continues to stay inside the top-25 teams. It's hard to imagine that won't happen, especially considering how well the program has done since Marcus Freeman took over. Personally, I hate this idea, as there aren't typically more than six teams that can realistically win a title. It also waters down an already watered down bowl season, where if you aren't in the CFP, it's almost as if it doesn't matter. I'm still in the camp that eight teams is enough, and while this past season was extremely exciting, it was drawn out too long. Imagine if this did pass how much longer the playoff would be, even with eliminating conference championship games. Another aspect of this that I don't like, its great to see the top two teams in each conference battle it. Hopefully this is just talk, as I don't think this move would be good for college football. Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on X (Formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions. Follow Mike on X: @MikeFChen This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: The Big Ten might try to expand of the College Football Playoff
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
The Big Ten could be proposing a massive expansion to the College Football Playoff
Sources: The Big Ten has begun populating an expanded College Football Playoff idea, which could include 24 or 28 teams. Just an idea at this point. While we just finished the first season of a 12-team College Football Playoff, where Notre Dame went to the championship game, the Big Ten is starting to have ideas of a bigger expansion. There has already been chatter of expanding the field to 16-teams, with the Big Ten and SEC being the main benefactors of that move. On Saturday, the conference looks like they might be laying the groundwork for an even bigger expansion, either 24 for 28 teams reports ESPN's Pete Thamel. The potential proposal would see the elimination of conference title games, giving more automatic bids to power conferences, and just two at-large bids. This clearly would not be the best case for the Irish, as both the Big Ten and SEC would have 7 bids, with the ACC and Big 12 each getting five. It would have the Group of Five teams getting an extra bid as well, but it might not make a difference at all of Notre Dame continues to stay inside the top-25 teams. It's hard to imagine that won't happen, especially considering how well the program has done since Marcus Freeman took over. Personally, I hate this idea, as there aren't typically more than six teams that can realistically win a title. It also waters down an already watered down bowl season, where if you aren't in the CFP, it's almost as if it doesn't matter. I'm still in the camp that eight teams is enough, and while this past season was extremely exciting, it was drawn out too long. Imagine if this did pass how much longer the playoff would be, even with eliminating conference championship games. Another aspect of this that I don't like, its great to see the top two teams in each conference battle it. Hopefully this is just talk, as I don't think this move would be good for college football. Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on X (Formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions. Follow Mike on X: @MikeFChen
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Big Ten working on super-sized CFP plans with 28 or 24 teams to replace championship games
The Big Ten has been working on a super-sized potential College Football Playoff format that could at least double the current 12-team field and convert conference championship weekend into an expansive first round, according to multiple people who have been briefed on the concept. The idea for a tournament with as many as 28 teams is just that at this point: an idea. It was presented to Big Ten athletic directors for the first time last week, one source said. Advertisement Sources spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity on Saturday because the plan was in such an early stage of development. The Power 4 conference commissioners have not had anything more than cursory discussions about the possibility of a massive postseason expansion. And nothing has been presented to any of the other FBS conferences or Notre Dame. The Big Ten was expected to send a slide deck with some details of the plan to the SEC this week. One source called the plan a 'thought-starter.' Another expressed frustration with the plan leaking before it could be distributed among decision makers. 'No one knew anything about this,' the second source said. CFP expansion talks have hit a snarl in the past few months. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has been pushing for an expanded field that would include multiple automatic bids for each power conference. The so-called 4-4-2-2-1-3 model would include a total of 16 teams, with the SEC and Big Ten getting four auto-bids, the ACC and Big 12 getting two each and one bid for the highest ranked champion from non-P4 leagues, plus three at-large bids. The Big Ten has a plan to determine its four CFP participants in that model through a combination of conference standings and play-in games on championship weekend, which would give teams ranked third through sixth in the standings a chance to secure a Playoff spot. The SEC had not yet committed to how it would reimagine its conference championship weekend under the model. Some SEC administrators did not like the idea that Big Ten teams would play into a 16-team CFP bracket by playing against each other. 'If there was a play-in between the SEC and the Big Ten, I think a lot more people would be on board with it,' an SEC athletic director told The Athletic earlier this summer. Adding even more teams could bring something like that closer to reality. Advertisement Big Ten officials and administrators believed the SEC was on board with their proposed auto-bid-heavy 16-team model, even though both the Big 12 and ACC were adamantly against it. The latter two conferences feared the brand damage that would come with a CFP format that deems their leagues half as good as the Big Ten and SEC. The Big 12 pushed back with its public support of a 5-11 format that included five conference champions and 11 at-large bids. The model intrigued SEC coaches and some ADs and left the two most powerful leagues at an impasse. Last season was the first with a 12-team playoff, and the format will only change slightly for 2025, with seeding that strictly adheres to the selection committee's rankings. Now the focus is on what the CFP will look like for 2026 and beyond, and the new CFP contracts between the conferences that kick in next year give the SEC and Big Ten the power to essentially dictate the format. The Big Ten isn't giving up on automatic bids, which Petitti insists will enhance the regular season by keeping more teams in the Playoff race deeper into November. He has also expressed dismay at leaning so hard on a selection committee to pick the Playoff teams. Petitti is in his second year as Big Ten commissioner after a long stint as a high-ranking executive at Major League Baseball, where he worked on expanding those playoffs. This new idea would have the Big Ten and SEC receive seven or six auto-bids while the Big 12 and ACC receive two fewer, in the hopes of assuaging fears in the Big 12 and ACC of being marginalized. Both the 28- and 24-team brackets would leave four slots for non-automatic qualifiers. A 28-team field would include four first-round byes and a second round of games played entirely at home stadiums. A 24-team field would have eight byes, and again, two rounds of home games. First-round games could be organized to emphasize matchups between teams in different conferences. The plan would be an extension of the intraconference play-in game idea, with matchups across conferences as Playoff games. Advertisement A Playoff this big would also require some restructuring of conference television deals that now include championship games, creating a lot of new broadcast inventory in return for eliminating showdowns between the leagues' top two teams. It would also raise questions about whether ESPN, which currently owns the broadcast rights to all the CFP games, would still hold claim over what would essentially be a new play-in round. A change this significant might be difficult to put into place for the 2026 season, even if the conferences could reach an agreement in the next few months. Another source said that more realistically, this could be a format to implement in 2027. Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey both said during their respective football media day events that if an agreement can't be reached on expansion, the CFP could stay at 12 for 2026. A mega-expansion that eliminates conference championship games is not an idea exclusive to the Big Ten. The SEC has internally looked at a Playoff as large as 32 teams over the past few months, a person involved in those discussions told The Athletic. Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz recently outlined a plan for a 30-team bracket. 'Now you're talking about an opportunity for 30 teams, 30 fan bases to be excited and engaged, engaged in giving revenue,' Drinkwitz said. 'You've got 30 teams with players who have access to compete for a championship. So, for me, I think that makes a lot more sense.' The next meeting of the full CFP management committee, which includes all 10 FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame's athletic director, is scheduled for Sept. 24 at the Big Ten offices outside Chicago. — The Athletic's Bruce Feldman contributed to this report. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
