Oregon women’s basketball hit the road over the past week, and proved their mettle in the process. The Ducks posted wins against St. Mary’s, Old Dominion, and Auburn to remain undefeated 9-0 in the early part of this season.
With Elisa Mevius out for the season, the Ducks have performed well as the competition has ramped up. Two seasons ago, the Oregon ladies were not able to recover after the loss of Peyton Scott in the first game of this season. This time around, the Ducks are arguably a better team and have adjusted well. They showcased that talent with their wins last week, all on the road.
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Oregon first traveled to Frisco, Texas, for the Hoopfest Women’s Challenge, to face SMU and OD.
St. Mary’s
The Ducks were on fire to open this game. In the first quarter, they jumped to an 11-0 opening lead, but the Gaels responded with an 11-0 run of their own, and we had a ball game.
Oregon went cold in the early second quarter and SMU surged ahead 22-15. The Ducks came back with five straight to close the gap. Oregon tied the match up at 26 and 29, but was down two points going into the half.
SMU pulled ahead early in the second half, building to a nine point lead. “It was kind of a tale of two games,” said head coach Kelly Graves. “The first half and the first part of the second half, we just running around with no purpose it seemed like, and just running in quicksand.”
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The lethargic Ducks were facing their first real test of the season, and what they were doing was not working, so Graves switched up the defense and Oregon flipped on the switch.
“For the first time this year, we had some adversity. We were down nine and didn’t look like we were showing any signs of life to actually come back, but we did. We switched to that zone; I thought the zone was really good to us,” Graves said. “We created some turnovers and got out in transition and finally got a couple of easy baskets and got it going again.”
And boy, did the Ducks get it going. Tied at the end of the third quarter, Oregon’s defense paved the way for a 23-7 pasting of the Gaels in the fourth quarter, and the Ducks ran away with the 71-53 victory.
Katie Fiso and Ari Long led Oregon with 15 points each, and Fiso’s 10 assists gave her a double-double for the game. The Ducks continued to shoot very well at the charity stripe, hitting 19-20 in the game.
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Old Dominion
The Ducks played the Monarchs on Thanksgiving day. OD started the game with the lead, but Oregon caught up to take a 5-4 lead. The Monarchs tied the game at 5 with a free throw, and then the Ducks ran away with it for the rest of the game, winning easily 84-46.
Oregon’s bench scored 56 points – more than OD’s entire team. With the bench players stepping up like that, the starters could rest. I mean, why not?
“I think we played a heck of a lot better than we did the other day,” Kelly Graves said. “It was nice we rested a lot of our starters and divvied out the minutes. So we should be pretty fresh going to Auburn, which is what we wanted. Our schedule amps up now.”
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Astera Tuhina led the way for the Ducks, scoring 18 points on 7-8 shooting. Sofia Bell was 3-7 on the long ball en route to her 11 points. Old Dominion could not compete against Oregon’s size. Ehis Etute was 4-6 from the field and 7-9 at the line for 15 points. Amina Muhammad was 5-5 from the field for 10 points.
As would be expected in a game with this margin of victory, Oregon easily won the turnover battle, and out-rebounded OD 47-34.
Auburn
After four tepid seasons coaching the Tigers, head coach Johnnie Harris was let go at the end of last season after she led Auburn to a dismal 12-18 record.
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The Tigers went up against Oregon yesterday with a new coach, a new team, and an 8-0 record to start the season. It was going to be a battle of the unbeatens to see who came out on top.
Oregon had to fight and rally in this game, but ultimately came out on top, 58-53.
The Tigers and Ducks went back-and-forth in the first quarter, with Oregon holding on to a 13-12 edge going into the second quarter. The second quarter put the Ducks in a hole that they would spend the entire second half trying to fill.
Oregon hurt themselves with 4-15 shooting in the second period, while Auburn shot over 53% and took a nine-point advantage into halftime, 33-24.
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The Ducks scrapped in the third period, and tied the game at 40-apiece going into the final quarter.
Katie Fiso took over the game in the fourth. Oregon did not score for the first three minutes of the quarter, but Fiso and Ehis Etude combined for a 10-0 run that put Auburn on their heels for the rest of the game. The Ducks had a six-point lead in the middle of the quarter that they held on to in winning the game.
Fiso scored 13 of her 24 points in the fourth quarter alone. In the 4th, she shot 5-7, including 1-1 from distance, and was 2-2 at the line.
Etude put together a monster double-double, with 16 points and 15 rebounds. Mia Jacobs really stepped up in this game as well, just missing the double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds.
Oregon was aided with great defense and won the battle of the boards, 41-32.
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With this win, the Ducks remain undefeated at 9-0. You have to go back to the Sabrina/Sabally 2019-20 season to find Oregon’s last 9-0 season start. These Ducks are not in that heady category, but they are off to a very good start this season – all the more remarkable considering they are without one of their best players this year.
Oregon comes back to Eugene to host the Oregon State Beavers on Wednesday. That game tips off at 6:00 pm PT and can be seen on Big Ten Plus.
