EUGENE, Ore. — After taking down the Arizona schools for their first two conference wins of the season, it was a tough trip to the Bay Area for Oregon (11-9, 2-5) as they dropped games to No. 6 Stanford and Cal.
Regardless of expectations, a 25-point blowout to Stanford in a game where the Cardinal lost star forward Cameron Brink to injury, and a narrow loss in a very winnable game against Cal were not the outcomes that Oregon was hoping for this weekend.
“All I can do is hope that we continue to improve, and we have been,” said head coach Kelly Graves. “We had a setback against Cal, but up until then, we had been improving with each week. Playing better basketball, cleaner basketball, doing the things that we need to at least put ourselves in a position to win, and then we took a step back and that’s unfortunate. So now we have to dust ourselves off and find a way this week.”
Stanford jumped on the Ducks from the get-go, starting the game with a 20-0 run to essentially put the game away in the first quarter. With just under four minutes to go in the quarter, Oregon guard Priscilla Williams jumped a passing lane for a steal and fastbreak to give the Ducks their first points of the game, but in the process collided with Brink, knocking the All-American forward out of the game. Without Brink in the game, Oregon looked much better, only being outscored 68-63 throughout the rest of the game, but the hole they dug themselves in the first quarter ultimately proved too deep to dig their way out of.
While it wasn’t the outcome they hoped for, the Ducks got to witness history, with Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer securing her 1,202nd career win against them, tying Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski as the winningest coach in the history of college basketball.
“It pales what I’ve done,” said Graves, who captured his 600th career win against UTSA earlier this year, of VanDerveer’s accomplishment. “She’s doubled my total, I mean it’s incredible to think about. She’s got more years left and they’re gonna continue to win. I’m sad that we lost but I’m happy for her.”
The Cal game was nearly the exact opposite of the Ducks’ loss at Stanford. Oregon held a lead late into the third quarter before finally relinquishing it before being outscored 19-9 in the fourth.
“The box score after that game is something I’ve never seen,” said Graves. “They scored 66 points, 52 of which came off second-chance points or points off turnovers. So you take those two areas out, they scored 14 points against us.
“We just got way spread out, that was on me. I don’t think our game plan was what it should’ve been. When you’re really spread out defensively, there’s a lot more room that you’ve got to cover, and we’re not the quickest team, so if we’re spread out and our guards aren’t getting a ton of those rebounds we’re in trouble because Philly [Kyei] and Kennedy [Basham] aren’t just gonna be able to run down long rebounds. I think that’s what happened, so we’ve just gotta do a better job at keeping the defense tight.”
This weekend won’t present Oregon with any easier opportunities for wins, with both of their mountain opponents ranked in the top 25.
Ducks will host the No. 16 Utah Utes (14-5, 4-3) for a 7 PM tip on Friday. The Utes played a strong non-conference schedule, only dropping games to top-ranked South Carolina and No. 13 Baylor. They’ve more than recovered from a loss to Arizona earlier this month though, building a three-game win streak with blowout wins over Cal and No. 11 USC, and an overtime victory over No. 2 UCLA.
Utah has been the most efficient team in the Pac-12 this year, shooting 50.7 percent from the field and 39.5 percent from three, both the best marks in the conference. What has made their long-range efficiency even more impressive is the fact that it has come on the third-highest volume in the country, only trailing Arkansas and Florida Gulf Coast in total shots from beyond the arc.
Their offensive attack is led by senior forward, Alissa Pili, who has become one of the nation’s best stretch bigs. Her 22.4 points per game rank eighth in the country and second in the Pac-12, only trailing USC’s JuJu Watkins. She’s been deadly from three this year as well, knocking down over 45 percent of her shots from long distance.
“We’re not gonna be able to chase them,” Graves said of Utah’s long-range attack. “So that negates our height and size advantage. We’re gonna have to keep them around the basket and do the best we can with perimeter players on their perimeter shooters.”
Utah’s three-point proficiency will be a matchup nightmare for the Ducks, who have struggled against teams with stretch bigs who can pull their defense out to the perimeter. Oregon has given up 153 threes this season, the eighth most in the country and by far the most in the Pac-12, notably allowing 16 and 21 threes in upset losses to Santa Clara and Utah Tech respectively.
“We’re gonna have to defend the perimeter and defend the three-point line,” Graves said. “They’re gonna make some, maybe they’re gonna make a bunch of them, but we’ve gotta make them shoot the same kind of percentage we made Cal, and this time just limit them to one.”
It doesn’t get any easier after the Utes for Oregon as their next visitor will be the No. 3 Colorado Buffaloes (16-2, 6-1) on Sunday.
The Pac-12 has been the best conference in the country this season, with UCLA, Colorado, and Stanford all being projected as No. 1 seeds in Charlie Creme’s latest Bracketology for ESPN.
“It’s the best conference in the country, every metric shows that,” Graves said. “I look at our remaining schedule that we have, and albeit we have a lot of home games which is nice, but we’re playing somebody really, really good every weekend, and most of the time two.”
I said before the Arizona State game that it was necessary to come out of that weekend with a win, which they did, because their next matchup against a team that isn’t currently ranked won’t come until they face Washington in late February.
“We’re not gonna be favored, we understand that. But we also have to believe that we can win, and I know I do.”
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