Best Moment of the Year — November 19

Garrett: Two days before Saturday the 19th, Crawford and I debated whether we’d rather see the football team or the men’s basketball team win that weekend. The football team was hosting Washington in its final home game of the season. The basketball team was in New Jersey for a nonconference game against the University of Texas.  In the end, we decided we’d be happy either way — as long as one of them won. Both were underdogs. Both won. The 38-21 thumping of Washington was the high point in a football season full of low points, and the 100-95 thrilling win over Texas brought the Beavers to 4-0 and put them on the national radar. The icing on the cake came a bit later in the night, when Oregon kicker Alejandro Maldonado missed a game-tying, 37-yard field goal to seal the Ducks’ fate in a nationally televised game against USC. Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it any better.

Runner-up: Conforto’s catch
and throw to beat Oregon

Kilstrom: The defining moment in the 2012 season for the No. 16 baseball team came in the second game of the Civil War conference series. With one out and a runner on third base in the top of the ninth inning, Ryon Healy ripped what looked like the game-tying base hit to left field, but freshman Michael Conforto made a spectacular shoelace catch and threw out Aaron Payne at the plate to secure the win in dramatic fashion. The Beavers went on to sweep the Ducks, preventing them from winning the Pac-12 title.

Honorable Mention: Men’s basketball
upsets Washington in Pac-12 quarterfinal

Garrett: I watched the second half of this thriller from the back row of my GEO 102 lab. I had the game streaming on my laptop, and by the time there was less than a minute left, half the class (including the TA) was standing behind me watching over my shoulder. Four Tony-Wroten-missed free throws later, the A-plus students in the front row who were still attempting to work on the lab looked back at us, wondering why we were all jumping on tables and high-fiving. The TA let us leave early after that, and a group of us went to Brew Station and spent the next hour discussing possible first-round NCAA Tournament destinations for the Beavers.