All Kaela Chapdelaine could do was sit there and watch.
She picked up her fifth foul in the last two minutes scrambling for a loose ball. Her pained expression told a lot about another frustrating afternoon for the Oregon women’s basketball playing without the urgency of a team striving for postseason play.
In losing 53-34 Saturday afternoon to visiting California, it likely eliminated any hopes Oregon had of earning a spot in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
“You can see that we’re drained,” coach Bev Smith said.
Oregon slipped to 10-14 overall and 4-9 in the Pacific-10 Conference with five games left to play. California, first in the Pac-10, improved to 21-3 and 12-1.
The final score hid what was a close game through the first 20 minutes. Cal led by four, 23-19, at halftime, but much like the way Oregon opened the Stanford game, the Ducks emerged from halftime lacking energy and Cal broke the game open.
What started as a 12-2 run in the first four minutes of the second half for a 35-21 lead became a full-fledged blowout when Cal point guard Alexis Gray-Lawson’s layup made it 46-26 with 7:12 remaining.
Cal relied heavily on the inside play of Devanei Hampton and Ashley Walker and Oregon stayed within two rebounds, 21-19, at halftime.
The pair went after the boards in the second half, either grabbing the rebound or tipping it to teammates and creating a 50-30 rebounding edge. Twenty-one of Cal’s boards came on the offensive end.
“(Coach Joanne Boyle) preached about it in the locker room, ‘Get on the boards. Get on the boards,” Gray-Lawson said. “Chapdelaine is their main offensive rebounder and just putting a body on the opponent really pushed the margin out with the rebounds.”
Trying to find a spark, coach Bev Smith inserted Tatianna Thomas and little-used forward Mary Sbrissa early in the second half. The regulars came back soon after but the message was sent.
“We just didn’t have energy,” Smith said. “We just looked like we weren’t able to make an adjustment.”
The short change-up is part of a larger message Smith is sending that Oregon needs to be competitive.
“We’re going to continue to search for people who are going to bring that energy, that are going to bring that intensity and get the job done,” Smith said.
Oregon benefited in the first half from early foul trouble by Walker, who picked up two fouls in the first seven minutes and sat out the rest of the opening frame.
“With (Ashley), she’s just so aggressive with how she plays you get her three (fouls) and we might not have her for the second half,” Boyle said. “So it was a combination of using Rama (N’diaye) and Kelsey (Adrian) at the four a little bit just to buy some time.”
And the strategy worked as Walker collected eight of her 12 rebounds in the second half. Hampton completed her double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds, while Gray-Lawson scored a game-high 16 points.
This was the second game this season Oregon went without a scorer reaching double-figures and was paced by Micaela Cocks with seven points. Canepa and guard Taylor Lilley each had six.
Oregon’s offensive output was the lowest in Pac-10 play and the lowest overall since scoring 34 in 1977-78 in a loss to Washington. The Ducks shot 20 percent for the game, making just 11 of 55 shots.
“We’re not getting in the paint and we’re not blocking out so when your offense suffers your confidence suffers and then your defense suffers,” point guard Tamika Nurse said. “We can’t get into that spiral downfall. We can’t do it anymore. We’ve lost six straight.”
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