Ducks Attack Message Board Forum

May 23 (FRI) 7 PM
May 24 (SAT) 4 PM
May 25 (SUN) TBD

Is it the post season, we meet again.

Liberty fans must be getting tired of coming out West to face Oregon.

It’s pretty telling how serious Liberty takes their athletics to have built a program that consistently competes with major conferences in the post season. Hats off to them.

UofDuck wrote: Tue May 20, 2025 3:42 am It’s pretty telling how serious Liberty takes their athletics to have built a program that consistently competes with major conferences in the post season. Hats off to them.

Liberty and Grand Canyon are the poster children for "Great academics don't build successful universities in America, great athletics do."

Does anyone else root again Mike White, or just me?

StevensTechU wrote: Thu May 22, 2025 7:46 pm Does anyone else root again Mike White, or just me?

Sort of but I just know that if his teams do get to OKC, they'll flame out like usual.

StevensTechU wrote: Thu May 22, 2025 7:46 pm Does anyone else root against Mike White, or just me?

After I saw that Texas lost yesterday, I smiled, But then I realized that if White hadn't jumped to Texas, Lombardi wouldn't be the coach now. As greenyellow noted , the Stanford game was one that White's teams lost, a Grand Slam in the 1st. Actually, the first game against Stanford was the most White-like, but Lombardi's Ducks didn't lose, they won and got a Super Regional. So, thanks Mike.

Merganzer wrote: Fri May 23, 2025 7:14 am After I saw that Texas lost yesterday, I smiled, But then I realized that if White hadn't jumped to Texas, Lombardi wouldn't be the coach now. As greenyellow noted , the Stanford game was one that White's teams lost, a Grand Slam in the 1st. Actually, the first game against Stanford was the most White-like, but Lombardi's Ducks didn't lose, they won and got a Super Regional. So, thanks Mike.

I think Lombardi is doing a good job, but I don't think White to Lombardi is like Cristobal to Lanning. White has continued to be very successful, and won everything except the big one. If I was a betting many, I'd wager he will get there. Conversely, Lombardi has steadily improved the team over time but it hasn't been any kind of immediate splash.

As a sign I should probably move on (or maybe not, it's sports after all), I don't fully recall all the details of why I despise him. Vaguely, it felt like he was a bit of an a** on the way out the door, and I really didn't appreciate that he raided the roster, putting Oregon in a place where we had a major rebuild. Anyhow, I was looking up the highest paid softball coaches in the country, and it's pretty interesting.

1. Patty Gasso (Oklahoma) - $1.9 million
2. Mike White (Texas) - $625,000
3. Lonni Alameda (Florida State) - $600,000
4. Tim Walton (Florida) - $550,855
5. Trisha Ford (Texas A&M) - $540,000
...
11. Melyssa Lombardi (Oregon) - $385,000

On a tangential note (I don't want to get this thread too, too off topic), but it's crazy to me that there are 15 NCAA baseball coaches who make over $1M. I saw something about Coach Waz being a target of Mississippi State, skoffed, but then saw that he makes $700k while the most recent MSU coach made $1.33M.

It's true that White has yet to win an NCAA softball championship. But his teams have been close. Honestly, you look at his teams (Oregon and Texas) over the dozen years or so that he's been a head coach and they've been phenomenally successful. I suspect it's just a matter of time before he wins one. I'm not at all convinced we're in a better situation with Lombardi as coach than with White. I think his recruiting is consistently better than Lombardi's as well.

That said, or perhaps because he's such a good coach that I think we could have worked harder to retain, I do root against Texas. I was especially bothered by how many Ducks followed him when he left (maybe especially the local girl Burke) and was relieved that he didn't get a championship with any former Ducks.

Great points all around. I do feel like Lombardi has made a Splash, especially when we consider what she started with, the exodus of White and the players, a lot of them to Texas, with him, others elsewhere, left very little, and early in her tenure, there were problems with Lombardi and the players that remained.

But she stayed with it & now has the team in the Super Regionals, with a chance to get to Oklahoma City.

I root against Florida State in most things, but I don't want any part of NiJaree Canady from Texas Tech. Texas Tech doesn't have to put many runs across to win games.

UCLA got smacked by South Carolina. Hopefully Nebraska can take down Tennessee.

Liberty’s coach looks and seems like the type of woman that calls the cops on kids for playing basketball too loudly in the street after school.


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Uhhhhhhhh do these umps have money on Liberty?!


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