Women's Basketball Diary: Ducks Still Searching for their Stankface
Every team faces adversity, and the great ones respond with a scoring frenzy (and a scowl). Oregon looks to find their fire in a much needed bounceback weekend hosting the Washington schools.
After dropping three of their last four—three of those to top ten teams—and coming off of one of the hardest-to-watch games of the Graves era, it’s safe to say that these Ducks are in uncharted territory.
I don’t want to use the word reeling because I don’t think a Kelly Graves-coached team is legitimately capable of reeling. But I think they’re about as close to reeling as it gets without actually reeling.
Last Thursday’s game at Arizona was a turnover-laden, offensively-anemic, frustration fest, but it also might have given the thirteenth-ranked team in the nation their official “Rock Bottom.”
Just in case you blacked that Zona game out of your brain, the Ducks committed 23 turnovers, assisted only 6 times, and shot 32.6% from the field (3 for 11 from beyond the arc).
All of those stats go against everything we’ve come to love about Oregon’s brand of basketball. And they should be pissed off about it.
The Ducks boast a culture of being smart with the ball, being unselfish offensively, and shooting with lethal efficiency. Young team or not, that’s not the team that showed up in Tucson. They know they’re much better than that.
Nyara was the sole standout in green and yellow a week ago. Sabally had 15 pts and 7 rebounds, but the Wildcats’ physicality proved to be too punishing by the end of the game. Sabally carried so much of the frontcourt burden on both sides of the ball, and she didn’t get a ton of relief without substantial time from a load-managed Sedona Prince.
The whole rotation up front seems to be spread out too thin for this point in the season. Nyara is absolutely good for 23+ minutes per game, don’t get me wrong, but when Giomi/Watson/Dugalic are only in for 7/11/14 minutes respectively—and when Prince is still healing up—those 23 minutes probably feel more like 46.
Graves mentioned last week that it was about time he streamlined the rotation, and hopefully another week of rest and recovery for Sedona allows him to focus on his Prince/Sabally frontcourt that was previewed so heavily in the preseason.
U of A played relentless defense, and their 14 steals is just one mark of how overwhelming they were for all of Oregon guards—from Paopao to Mikesell.
I don’t want to act like, “oh, we get Sedona back and everything will be fixed!” because I know that last week’s game—and all the warning signs from the Stanford and UCLA games before that—were not solely due to Prince’s absence.
But it sure wouldn’t hurt for this young team to have a 6’7” All-American on the court. She demands a defense’s attention, and her presence alone can alleviate even a little pressure from a backcourt that is still clearly in transition.
These losses are painful, and they’re uncharacteristic, but now it’s all about Oregon’s response.
Wazzu gave them one helluva scare in Pullman last month, and the Cougs still have the best squad in their program’s history.
Everyone on this team is a competitor. It’s time for some trademark Sabrina stankfaces.
I saw some fire in Paopao’s frustration with the first half officiating vs U of A. I saw that same passion when Sydney Parrish screamed “FUCK” after nailing a three in the route over Cal. And Sabally sure looked pissed off when she kept getting beat up down low by Zona.
Stanford’s loss on Sunday to CU blew the Pac-12 wide open once again, and climbing back into the conference fight will take a little of that competitive flame, along with a recommitment to all the fundamentals that make Oregon, Oregon.
I now the Ducks aren’t going to accept the “we’re still young” or the “Sedona is hurt” excuses, so the Washington schools are just going to have to deal with the fallout of a well-prepared (and well-pissed off) squad.
This is just where the end-of-the-season DVD starts.
Ducks by 90.
Go Ducks.
James, they are young and they need a couple of leaders to emerge. I think Pao Pao eventually will fill that role. They do need to be tougher. UCLA, ASU, Arizona and even WSU play very physical basketball. And that's what coaches do when they don't have the talent to compete with Oregon - turn it into a brawl because they know the officials won't call everything. Recruiting tougher players might help, but I noticed Arizona players diving on the floor for loose balls while our players hesitated. This is not good. Kelly can and should expect the kids to leave it all on the floor even if they aren't naturally physical in the style they play.