Oregon women’s basketball took on I-5 neighbor Portland State Tuesday evening, winning 63-56 within the friendly confines of Mathew Knight Arena.
It wasn’t pretty at times for Oregon (2-1), who allowed the winless Vikings (0-4) to hang around longer than one would expect, but in the end they picked up the win.
“Boy, (Portland State) really played a tough game,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves said. “They battled us and gave us everything we could handle, but I am proud of our team. We made the plays we needed to down the stretch.”
Lexi Bando had a career-high 18 points and three assists, Lexi Petersen had 16 points, five rebounds and five assists, and Jillian Alleyne finished with 17 points and 13 rebounds.
There has been a lot of buzz surrounding star junior Alleyne this week, as she can’t seem to go five minutes without being added to an award watch list. She was named to both the preseason top-30 for the Wooden Award and the top-25 for the Wade Trophy.
“What I love about her — and its one of her positives and one of her negatives — is she is very unselfish,” coach Graves said. “There are times when she just needs to say ‘ok, this is my game, everyone just needs to get out of the way.’”
Though the Vikings feasted off balance in their play and scoring, one player did stand out. Senior guard Lariel Powell just missed recording a double-double of her own, finishing with 10 points and nine rebounds. The only negative to Powell’s night was her game-high eight turnovers.
At halftime the Ducks held a tenuous 30-28 lead in a slow half of basketball.
Coming out of break Oregon began to force the issue inside. The opening play of the game was a post isolation to Alleyne, who calmly spun past her defender for the easy layup. The Ducks went on to score six unanswered points to open up their biggest lead of the game since the opening minutes.
For awhile the Duck’s opening performance of the second half was reminiscent of what happened in their previous outing when No. 11 North Carolina used a surge after halftime to win 76-59.
However, the Vikings kept fighting, keeping the score close and threatening to regain the lead. At the 11-minute mark of the game they cut the deficit to just three points. Portland State took advantage of mental errors and turnovers from Oregon.
Portland State took the 51-50 lead with 6:30 left in the game after senior Ani Avanessian nailed the three. It was a short-lived, as a quick transition two from Alleyne put Oregon back in control.
Battling down to the wire, Oregon finally won control of the game on a big three point make from Petersen with the shot clock winding down.
“I saw Jill stuck down there and I just tried to make myself available,” Petersen said. “I saw there were three seconds left so I knew I was going to shoot it and hope for the best.”
Oregon clearly had the advantage when it came to talent, though Portland State was able to hang in the game and even lead for stretches thanks to their ability to outplay the Ducks as a team. Oregon’s offense went stagnant too often as play devolved into one-on-one isolations and roaming the perimeter.
When those threes aren’t falling — like tonight, with the Ducks going 5-19 (26.3%) from downtown — this team suffers. As the season goes on, and the opposing talent level increases, those struggles will result in losses unless they begin to focus on working the ball inside.
“In the moments that mattered we stepped up and we pulled through with clutch shots, plays and stops,” Petersen said. “We didn’t play out best tonight, but I think if anything we can take from this is we came through in the end.”
The next date to circle on the calendar for Oregon fans is the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving, when the Ducks will take part in the South Point Thanksgiving Shootout in Las Vegas, Nevada. They will face Central Michigan and American.
Follow Christopher Keizur on Twitter @chriskeizur