For the first time in nearly a month, the Oregon women’s basketball got off to the good start its been preaching about in practice.
Although the Ducks fell behind 5-0 early, they used an 18-5 run over the next eight minutes to take an 18-10 lead and never look back en route to a 70-44 win over Seattle University. With the win, the Ducks end their preseason with a 7-4 record before heading down to Southern California this weekend for the start of Pac-12 play.
“It was a good win — I was pleased with how we came out and started the game,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves said. “It was nice to see us, right from the get go, take it to them defensively.”
Not since December 5 against Portland had Graves been satisfied with Oregon’s starts from the opening tip. What pleased him most about this start was that the Ducks began their run on the defensive side of the ball, something the coaching staff has been telling the team its needed to dos since October.
Katelyn Loper broke out of a small shooting slump with a game-high 16 points by going 6-for-12 from the field, including 2-for-6 from three-point territory. Jillian Alleyne was her usual self as she posted another double-double with 13 points and a game-high 15 rebounds. Amanda Delgado added 11 points for Oregon while Lexi Peterson had 10 points, four assists four rebounds and two steals.
According to Graves though, the unsung hero of the game was Megan Carpenter.
The 6-foot-4 senior made a huge impact on the game, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, even though her stat line was nothing impressive to logout.
After the game, Graves mentioned how he and his staff decided that they needed toppled bigger to get ready for conference play and they challenged Carpenter to be that player to step up and she did so. By using her tall and lanky frame, Carpenter was able to disrupt many Seattle shots and take up space down in the paint to free up Alleyne for rebounds.
“I was real proud of Megan Carpenter tonight,” Graves said. “I thought she was a real factor in impacting the game. She impacted the game in a big way.”
Carpenter helped limit Seattle to 22.4 percent shooting for the game (15-for-67).
After the Ducks rebounded to take the eight-point lead early on, they steadily pulled away for good over the rest of the game.
Seattle cut the deficit to 6, 19-13, but a 9-0 run by the Ducks, aided by three-pointers from Loper and Lexi Bando, had Oregon leading 28-13 with 6:03 left in the half. Delgado scored the final points of the half as she hit one of her three three-pointers with 2:30 to play to put the Ducks up 33-15 at the break.
The second half was no more thrilling than the first as Alleyne, Loper and Peterson combined for 21 of the team’s 37 points in the half. Oregon reached its largest lead of 38 at the 4:39 mark when it led 70-32 after Jordan Loera knocked down a three-pointer.
Follow Ryan Kostecka on Twitter @Ryan_Kostecka