Oregon may have been rusty, but overcame it with a high-scoring offensive performance.
The women’s basketball team shrugged off its two-week break and soon the UC-Santa Barbara team’s season was over, the victims of Oregon’s high-powered offense. The Ducks shot 50 percent from both the field and the three-point range in Oregon’s 70-54 win Saturday night at McArthur Court.
Oregon’s win, before 1,533 fans, advances the Ducks to the third round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament. Oregon will now travel to Wyoming for a game Thursday at 7 p.m. Wyoming defeated Missouri 73-67 Sunday to advance.
First, Oregon had to beat UCSB and they did it with help from Carolyn Ganes, who had a team-high 13 points, and was one of five Ducks in double-figure scoring.
“We all went into it just wanting to have fun, understanding that every game could be our last,” Ganes said. “We just want to go in and enjoy the team, enjoy the atmosphere (and) enjoy the fans.”
While Oregon was playing in its first game in two weeks, UCSB was playing its second game in three days.
“We talked at the beginning of the game, and all week, that maybe our execution wouldn’t be as good as it needed to be right away, because it has been a couple weeks since we played, but our effort was there,” coach Bev Smith said. “Offensively we turned the ball over and did some things that you could see that rust, but what I really liked is, we (told our team) that maybe our execution is off but our effort can’t be off.”
Oregon made UCSB’s Jenna Green a focus on defense. Green, an agile low-post presence, often found herself double-teamed by Oregon in the first half and forced to kick the ball out to the Gaucho guards.
She made just 1-of-6 shots in the first half. Green found her rhythm in the second half, scoring 9 of UCSB’s first 12 points.
“She’s such a good player that we felt that if we could keep the ball out of her hands and keep her from scoring or at least make her work as hard as she needed to that we would have a pretty good chance of defending (her),” Smith said.
Her teammate, Jessica Wilson, who had 28 points in the first meeting between the two schools on Nov. 17, missed both of her shots in the first half and picked up three fouls in the first fifteen minutes.
“We were focused on limiting Green’s points, but our perimeters – all of us – did a great job of closing out short to Jessica,” said guard Kaela Chapdelaine, who played with a sore back. “She’s a great penetrator (with a) good dribble jumper.”
Oregon’s defense and UCSB’s tired legs limited the Gauchos to 18.8 percent from the field in the first half and 16.7 percent from three-point range. They upped their field goal percentage to 29.7 for the game.
Oregon created a nine point lead 10 minutes in off a layup by Jamie Hawkins. The Ducks extended it to 28-13, on another Hawkins layup and led 32-17 at halftime. Oregon notched its largest margin of 23, 68-45, on a jumper by Eleanor Haring with 3:30 left in the second half.
Oregon maintained its lead off the strength of its perimeter shooting and ability to consistently find teammates cutting to the hoop. Oregon made 20 assists with five by Chapdelaine and four each from Tamika Nurse and Micaela Cocks.
Although Oregon had 21 turnovers, they kept UCSB’s up-tempo offense under control.
“It was definitely our main key for this game was stopping them in defensive transition, making them a half-court team,” Chapdelaine said. “We are very good when we play defense in the half court.”
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