Final thoughts from Salt Lake City…
Heartbreak once hurts enough; heartbreak twice should be unbearable.
When the Oregon women’s basketball team lost its first round NCAA Tournament matchup against Iowa on March 17 it was hard to not feel sorry for them, regardless of what team fans rooted for.
The final score: Iowa 89, Oregon 82. Overtime. The Ducks had a chance to put the game away in regulation, but an iffy jump-ball and a costly turnover allowed the Hawkeyes to tie the game.
Remember what happened at McArthur Court a year ago from that same day?
After years of vying for a home berth in the Big Dance, the Ducks finally had their wish granted by a technicality. But upstart UAB didn’t get rattled in The Pit, and held a two-point lead with less than 20 seconds to go in overtime.
Oregon got the ball to Jamie Craighead outside the three-point line. Think she’d drive in for the easy two? Nope.
She shot the trey, and buried it.
Ducks up by one. Nine seconds left. It seemed the game was over, and the near sellout crowd was loving it.
As time ran out, the lady Blazers drove the ball down court. Oregon center Jenny Mowe and forward Angelina Wolvert stepped up to help on defense, trapping the UAB player in the key. The crowd roared even louder…
And that’s when the ball popped loose to UAB’s Shaqueta Rhodes, who laid it in with three seconds left.
Ball game.
In my limited experiences as a sportswriter, I’ve never seen such a painful postgame interview than the one that followed that game.
Oregon coach Jody Runge, who seems to stand approximately 10-feet tall when she paces up and down the sideline during games, seemed dangerously fragile as she sat at that long table in front of reporters, trying to explain what transpired minutes earlier.
I’ll never forget the looks on the players’ faces, either. Wolvert, who commands the same presence on the court as Runge does on the sideline, could hardly speak as she fought back tears.
The Ducks were devastated. Absolutely devastated.
But there appeared to be some promise to spring forth from the loss. While their faces showed devastation, the Ducks — players and coach — weren’t void of hope. After the UAB game, they talked about next season, and their next Big Dance, and how what happened that night wouldn’t happen again.
And wouldn’t you know? It happened again.
So when Hawkeye guard Lindsey Meder drained the trey that sent March 17’s game into overtime, followed by six straight Iowa points that led to the Hawkeyes’ victory, it makes sense that Oregon would be even more blown away the second time around.
There were plenty of emotions present during Duck postgame interviews: sadness, nostalgia, suspense, frustration and anger were among the many.
But believe it or not, Oregon didn’t seem like a devastated team.
Everything seemed different. Runge wore her game face to the interview room, speaking no differently as she did when the Ducks lost at home to USC or Washington State.
Wolvert struggled to string a few sentences together, but spoke loud and clear when venting about the officiating.
Mowe joked with reporters as she answered serious questions, even pausing to laugh at Fairfield’s mascot, a furry stag, which happened to pass by on its way to the court.
No Duck seemed to take the loss harder than senior forward Lindsey Dion, who showed the mileage of a rough-and-tumble career that had recently come to an abrupt end — but even she didn’t look beaten, at least not like Oregon did after the UAB loss.
Words alone can’t describe the many emotions that hung over the Ducks after their last game.
But I can think of one word that seemed to encompass the overall feeling.
Think about Oregon’s season. Remember all the injuries and illness, and how many times the Ducks’ continuity was thrown awry each time somebody changed positions or couldn’t play.
The Ducks overcame those issues and more as they battled to finish their season on a winning note. There was a time not long ago when the NCAA Tournament was a mathematical pipe dream. Oregon players were thrilled to be invited.
There was no end to the season’s adversity, however, which started with Shaquala Williams’ season-ending injury last September and continued to mount until there was 30 seconds left in overtime against Iowa, when Dion was slapped with an intentional foul in the backcourt because she grabbed a Hawkeye’s arm — a far cry from hard-fouling a player on the fast break, which could actually result in injury worse than a broken nail.
Mowe talked about Dion’s intentional foul after the game. Mowe said she laughed when it happened, because why not laugh? What else could go wrong this season?
Maybe I’m off the mark, but I don’t believe Oregon players were devastated when the final buzzer sounded and the season came to a close.
I don’t think they had a fun season. I’ve yet to talk to a player this season who’s said she’s really enjoying her Oregon experience. And, with the latest Runge fiasco that still keeps dragging on, I can’t imagine that recent closed-door practices were joyous events.
Devastated? Far from it. With all that’s gone wrong this season, I’m going to go out on a limb and make a wild assertion.
As I said earlier, I can think of but one word to sum up how Oregon felt after its NCAA Tournament defeat:
Relieved.