EUGENE, Ore. — Just under a year ago, the 2023-24 iteration of the Oregon Ducks traveled to Waco, Texas to take on the No. 13 Baylor Bears, a game they would lose 71-51. A year later, the Ducks hosted the No. 12 Bears at Matthew Knight Arena — this time coming away with a thrilling 76-74 win.
"This is a big win for our program," head coach Kelly Graves said postgame.
Oregon is a completely different squad this year, returning just 37 percent of its total minutes from last season's team. Of the top ten minutes getters a year ago, only Phillipina Kyei, Sofia Bell, Sarah Rambus, and Sammie Wagner are back following an off-season roster overhaul — which was necessary after the Ducks finished just 11-21 on the season and last in the Pac-12.
This year's roster features nine newcomers (seven transfers and two freshmen) who have accounted for 64 percent of the minutes and 65 percent of the points through Oregon's first two games this season.
"We've got a new team, a brand new team," Graves said. "With that, you have some growing pains."
"With us, there's so many new faces," guard Deja Kelly said. "We're still in the process of learning each other, gelling, and just playing together. Really we're just getting reps too with playing together and learning in live play."
In contrast, Baylor returned 72 percent of its minutes and 71 percent from last season's Sweet 16 team, including seven of the top ten scorers. The Bears lost leading scorer Dre'Una Edwards but have replaced her production by landing Aaronette Vonleh in the transfer portal, who ESPN's Charlie Creme ranked as the eighth-best player available after earning All-Pac-12 First-Team honors with Colorado last year.
She scored five points with five rebounds against the Ducks on Sunday after averaging 10 points and six boards in three games against Oregon last year.
With this year's Baylor team being so similar to last year's and this year's Oregon being so different, it gives Duck fans a point of reference to evaluate this new roster in an early-season game against a high-level opponent.
Last season's loss in Waco was defined by three things — the Ducks' cold shooting spells, their inability to haul in defensive rebounds, and Baylor's propensity to push the tempo to create easy looks in transition.
"We gotta take care of the ball, we gotta take care of the boards," Graves said after last year's game. "Those are two areas that we didn't do tonight, and it hurt us. They made us pay for both."
In last year's game, the Ducks experienced multiple dry spells from the field that allowed Baylor to go on runs, not making a shot for 7:33 to end the first half and start the second before ending the game 0-for-5 across the last 4:23 — while Baylor finished on a 9-1 run. Oregon was also outrebounded 18-4 on the offensive glass leading to a 15-5 second-chance points advantage while Baylor totaled 15 steals and outscored the Ducks 21-2 on fastbreaks. Despite both teams shooting 39 percent from the field, those extra possessions created 22 more shots for Baylor.
On Sunday night, the Ducks played a much more complete game across the board. Oregon shot exactly 50 percent from the field, and while neither team shot the lights out from long range, the Ducks hit on five of their 13 threes while Baylor shot just 4-for-16 from distance. Oregon struggled from beyond the arc as a team last year, finishing last in the Pac-12 at just 29.4 percent. That lack of shooting showed up in their game against Baylor a year ago as the team went just 1-of-8 from three, but it was a different story this time around.
Despite losing the offensive rebound advantage 10-7, Oregon was able to limit Baylor to just three second-chance points thanks to an outstanding defensive effort throughout the night. The Ducks executed their defensive rotations perfectly on many possessions, shutting down any advantage Baylor tried to gain.
Even though Oregon forced six more turnovers than Baylor, the Bears' speed was still able to net them a plus-5 advantage in points off of turnovers and a plus-4 advantage in fast break points. Guard Jada Walker was a pest in particular for the Bears, using her quickness to get out in transition. She finished with a team-high 24 points and four steals on the night.
Another advantage that Oregon held over Baylor on Sunday night was the Matthew Knight Arena crowd, which helped power the Ducks in some of the game's biggest moments.
"Our fans definitely helped us through that," Kelly said. "We had a great crowd tonight so I think that definitely helped."
The story of the game was its runs. Oregon was able to gain momentum near the end of the first half thanks to an 11-0 run over the final five minutes, capped off by a Nani Falatea fast break three with 30 seconds to play. Baylor responded with an 8-2 run to start the second half that cut Oregon's lead to three before the Ducks began to pull away again. Oregon reeled off a 10-2 run over the next three-and-a-half minutes that pushed the lead to double-digits for the first time.
"Basketball's a game of runs," forward Alexis Whitfield said. "Everyone's gonna go on their runs. We went on our runs, they went on their runs. Our biggest thing was just stopping their runs."
The Duck lead was up to as many as 16 after Falatea hit a layup 10 seconds into the fourth quarter. Then Baylor began to crawl back into the game, outscoring the Ducks 24-8 over the next eight minutes of game time to erase the lead at 72 apiece with just over a minute to play. Baylor's defensive intensity came out in that quarter, forcing five Oregon turnovers in the final period.
"We really stayed solid throughout the game," Kelly said. "They went on their run, came back, we lost our lead a little bit. But I think we stayed really level-headed and I tried to lead the best I could. But that's where our experience showed up too."
The Ducks knew just how to respond though, as after Vonleh and Kelly traded buckets, Kelly drove and kicked to Elisa Mevius in the corner who took the ball hard to the hoop and finished with her right hand to give Oregon a lead they wouldn't relinquish over the game's final 22 seconds.
"Today showed that we have fight in us," Whitfield said. "That we want it and that we can battle. That was the importance of this game today for us as a team. To show that we know how to fight, we know how to be strong."
Graves said postgame that there wasn't much he took from last year's experience going into Sunday night, but on the floor, the results showed as Oregon snapped a 14-game losing streak against ranked opponents.
"We've talked to them all year about, 'Hey, we can be a really, really great team,'" Graves said postgame. "But until you see it, until you get a win like this, you may not believe it."
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