Powerful, balanced Oregon ready for “Big Ten championship” at Wisconsin

Armed with a five-gun arsenal, Oregon is mustered for a frontal assault on the stronghold it will engage next year in the Big Ten.

The NCAA women’s volleyball tournament round of 16 on Thursday sees the balanced and battle-tested Ducks (28-5) square off with Purdue (23-8) in Madison, Wisconsin. A victory would send Oregon into regional-final showdown against host Wisconsin (28-3) or Penn State (23-8).

Ducks coach Matt Ulmer will make a Badger State homecoming as his troops from the disbanding Pac-12 get a first-hand look at the Big Ten minefield they will have to negotiate in their new league.

“If Nebraska were invited to this weekend, we could call it the 2024 Big Ten championship tournament,” said Ulmer, a Wisconsin native with deep roots at Carthage College in Kenosha, roughly a two-hour drive southwest Madison. “It’s crazy that this is a preview of what our future will look like in our new league.

“But this level of competition is nothing new for us. The Pac-12 was really loaded. We typically schedule a lot of Big Ten teams in the non-conference. It seems like in the playoffs every year, we’re matched up with somebody from the Big Ten. The players who decide they want to come to Oregon have aspirations of playing at the highest level, so for them to switch conferences (in 2024), that’s not going up or down, it’s exactly what they’re trying to do.”

As befitting their statuses as the best volleyball conferences in the country, with 30 NCAA titles between them, the Big Ten and Pac-12 own half of the 16 teams left standing after the tournament’s first two rounds. Both leagues went 9-1.

The NCAA selection committee opted to award more bids to two other conferences. The Southeastern had eight bids, going 8-5 with three of its teams advancing. The Big 12 got seven, but after a 7-6 record, only defending NCAA champion Texas remained in contention. The Atlantic Coast also received five invitations, went 7-2 and has three in the hunt.

That the Pac-12’s…