And you thought the Civil War football game was big.
Saturday’s final regular-season game for the women’s basketball team is its most important of the year — and not just because the Ducks are playing Oregon State.
Both teams will enter McArthur Court for the 1 p.m. tip-off with hopes of an NCAA Tournament berth. Only one of them will leave with a realistic shot.
Oregon (16-11 overall, 9-8 Pacific-10 Conference) sits in fourth place in the conference standings, while the Beavers (16-11, 8-9) are only one game behind in seventh place.
While preparing for the 65th Civil War meeting and hoping for an eighth consecutive trip to the Big Dance, Oregon has had to do much reflecting this week.
In a Sunday meeting with Oregon Athletic Director Bill Moos, eight players requested that head coach Jody Runge be fired. Since Tuesday, the team’s first practice of the week, the Ducks have been forbidden to speak with the media.
But, on Tuesday, the team said it was going to focus on the game.
Like the first meeting of the season — which the Ducks won 71-67 on Jan. 5 in Corvallis — senior forward Lindsey Dion expects nothing less than a hard-fought battle.
“It’s going to be a rough, physical, very emotional game, regardless of where either team is in the standings. One could be at the bottom, the other at the top — it doesn’t matter,” senior forward Lindsey Dion said. “Everything’s fair game in the Oregon Civil War game. I wouldn’t expect anything different Saturday afternoon.”
For Dion and the four other Oregon seniors — Angelina Wolvert, Jenny Mowe, Brianne Meharry and Camber Ellingson — who will be playing in their final game at Mac Court, beating the Beavers is not a new idea. In fact, they have never lost to their rival, with the Ducks winning the last 10 contests.
“We’re really excited about playing Oregon State,” said Wolvert, the team’s leading scorer at 14 points a game. “It’s always been a great battle for us; it’s always been very physical. We just want to come out and play well.”
Shadowing Oregon’s bid to the NCAA Tournament is the Beavers’ Pac-10 Player of the Year candidate Felicia Ragland. The junior guard is leading the conference with 19.8 points per game.
The post matchup should also be interesting. Mowe and Oregon State’s Ericka Cook have a history of struggles in the paint, although they became friends this year.
“Ericka and Felicia have been super leaders, really trying to bring our younger players along,” Oregon State head coach Judy Spoelstrasaid. “We’re not really thinking about all the postseason stuff; we feel pretty confident about the WNIT already, and anything else would be icing on the cake.”
The Beavers have won five straight games, including a sweep of first-place Arizona State and Arizona last weekend, and are thirsty for their first postseason trip since 1996.”If we just come out and play our game and stay focused for 40 minutes, I think we’ll have no problem beating them,” Cook said. “I don’t think there’s any bad blood; it’s just a rivalry.”
The first meeting of the season set the tone for Saturday’s at Mac Court, a place where the Beavers have not won since Feb. 5, 1993.
“Our defense needs to be a lot better than when we last played them, and I think that our balance will probably be a lot more balanced than when we played them before,” Spoelstra said. “We’re both different teams right now; it was such a long time ago.”
As for the Ducks, who are averaging a Pac-10-best 4,845 fans per game at The Pit, another win for the most successful class in program history — the senior class of 2001 — would put a nice coat of wax on a tumultuous season and perhaps breed life for a new beginning next weekend.
“We definitely want to be in the [NCAA] Tournament, and this is definitely a big turning point for us,” Wolvert said. “It would be awesome to end a senior season on a win, even if we don’t go to the tournament.”