In what became a wild matchup, the Oregon women’s basketball team was narrowly defeated by the Colorado Buffaloes 86-83 in overtime on Wednesday night, but not before Endyia Rogers scored her 1,000th career college point.
After a nail-biting loss to Stanford over the weekend, the 25th ranked Ducks lost their second heartbreaker in a row to the Buffaloes.
Colorado came into the matchup off of a much-needed win against the USC Trojans on Sunday. With the win, they matched their most program wins in a season (19) since 2013-2014.
The contest began as an offensive struggle for both teams, with Oregon starting out 0-of-7 from 3-point range. They were fortunate to only be down one point after the first quarter of play. The Ducks went on to miss their next five 3s but stood tall defensively thanks to Nyara Sabally’s presence.
Sabally didn’t start the game the way she wanted to, but ended in style as she tallied 13 of her 22 points on 8-10 shooting in the fourth quarter alone. She also snagged seven rebounds.
Rogers was the only player from either squad to hit double figures in points in the first half, with 11 points as she showed out in her landmark game. Her teammate Te-Hina Paopao wasn’t her usual self, as she turned the ball over four times and shot just 3-of-13 from the field.
Rogers ended the game with 28 points – her third time doing so this season – and shot 10-of-18 from the field.
“Endyia was a warrior tonight. She played her butt off,” head coach Kelly Graves said. “She really carried us tonight; we didn’t have a great shooting night.”
Towards the end of the third quarter, things started to take a turn for the worse for Oregon. The Ducks ended the quarter on a 1-of-10 field goal run.
At the same time, the Buffaloes began to heat up with a 12-2 run to end the third quarter. Starting guard Mya Hollingshed was a key part of that run as she poured in 18 points and 9 rebounds.
Graves utilized his entire lineup throughout the game, and the bench was a big factor that made the contest as close as it was.
The matchup became highly contested down the stretch as both squads began committing foul after foul. The Ducks used that to their advantage as they knocked down every free throw they attempted in the fourth quarter on an 11-1 run with just a minute remaining.
Rogers hit two clutch free throws with 15 seconds left to force overtime. The score after the end of regulation was 72-72.
Overtime play was back and forth throughout, but it looked as if Colorado was going to seal it with 1 second on the clock. A missed layup by Tameiya Sadler gave Oregon one last shot, leaving the game tied at 80.
Since one overtime period proved too little to separate these two squads, they headed to a sixth period of play to settle the score.
In the second overtime, it was the same story as the rest of the game. Feisty play from both teams led to a 2-point Colorado lead when Sabally was fouled with 4 seconds left. She was only able to knock one of her free throws down, and the Buffaloes went on to win 86-83.
Oregon’s comeback effort wasn’t enough to overcome Colorado’s fast-paced offense, but the fight they showed was noticed by their head coach.
“I can’t be prouder of the way we fought,” Graves said. “I thought the kids did a great job of managing those couple minutes of regulation.”
The Ducks will look for redemption when they face the Utah Utes in Salt Lake City on Saturday at noon.
