EUGENE, Ore. — For the first time since 2020, Oregon women's basketball is 5-0 to start the season. The No. 23 Ducks found themselves back in the polls last week for the first time in over a year following their upset defeat of No. 12 Baylor, and with their 70-54 win over Grand Canyon on Monday night, have now won their first five games for the fifth time under head coach Kelly Graves.
Things were all Ducks (5-0) from the jump. Oregon raced out to a 22-10 lead at the end of the first quarter thanks to a five-minute 20-0 run that saw Peyton Scott and Nani Falatea each knock down a pair of threes. Scott led the way for the Ducks with 17 points on the night while Falatea finished with nine on 2-of-4 shooting from beyond the arc.
Falatea has been one of Oregon's biggest contributors off the bench, and Monday night marked the third straight game in which she hit multiple threes, bringing her to 63.6 percent from deep over that stretch.
"Nani's really been a huge lift," Graves said of Falatea. "When you have that kind of production off the bench, you're gonna be in good shape. On a night where maybe Deja [Kelly] doesn't shoot it that well, yeah, you've gotta have somebody pick it up and Nani did that."
Oregon's offensive explosion slowed in the second quarter, as they only outscored the Lopes (2-2) 14-8 to take an 18-point lead into halftime. GCU cleaned up its offense — only turning the ball over four times after a turnover-heavy first quarter — making the Ducks have to create looks from the halfcourt. Oregon didn't force things, settling for open jumpers that just wouldn't fall, shooting only 6-of-19 from the field and 1-of-6 from three.
"I think we just got stagnant," Scott said of the Ducks' offense. "Sometimes we overthink the game and we overthink the defense, and we don't realize how good we are off the dribble or penetrating and kicking, or how many threats we have on the floor. The tough thing about us is you're always going to have to guard one through five, and we take a lot of pride in that."
After the break, GCU would actually outscore the Ducks by two, proving Oregon's early 20-point run to be very consequential.
"Usually we just executed and made a couple of shots," Graves said of his team's extended scoring streaks. "When we kind of get it rolling, we're pretty good. We've got a lot of different weapons and had a nice run there."
Deja Kelly was Oregon's leading scorer coming into the night at over 14 points per game, but she was held scoreless on 0-of-9 shooting, only the fourth such game of her career and the first since January of 2022. But even without her shot falling, Kelly found other ways to impact the game, pacing the Ducks with 11 rebounds and four assists.
"She had a good floor game," Graves said of Kelly. "But didn't look the same offensively."
Without Kelly's scoring, other Ducks like Amina Muhammad were forced to step up. The Texas transfer recorded her first double-double as a Duck, finishing with 11 points and 10 rebounds — with six points coming on the offensive glass.
"I take a lot of pride in that," Muhammad said of her willingness to do the dirty work, "Not a lot of people are willing to do things like that so somebody's gotta do it."
Oregon was without sophomore Sammie Wagner and freshman Ehise Etute tonight, who were both dressed in sweats on the bench. Wagner played in three of Oregon's first four games while Etute missed the start of the season representing her home country of Luxembourg in the EuroBasket qualifiers — leading them to a 3-1 record in group play while averaging over 15 points and 13 rebounds a game. Graves said that the two were dealing with injuries and will likely miss the Ducks' next game before they can hopefully return when Oregon heads to Laie for the Hawaii North Shore Showcase.
The Ducks will have a quick turnaround before their next game, hosting Auburn (3-0) for a 6 PM tipoff on Wednesday. The Tigers were a tournament team a year ago, and have increased their win total in each of head coach Johnnie Harris' first three seasons at the helm.
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