The Oregon women’s basketball team faces off against the Washington schools this weekend in the final pair of conference matchups before the Pacific-10 Conference tournament in March.
The Ducks (15-11 overall, 7-9 Pac-10) are poised to clinch a Day 1 bye at the Pac-10 tournament if they manage to finish sixth or higher in the Pac-10 standings. Oregon is currently tied with UCLA for sixth place, but holds the advantage in the tiebreaker.
On paper the Ducks have a more favorable matchup this weekend against unranked Pac-10 cellar-dweller Washington State (5-21 overall, 1-15 Pac-10), and No. 38 Washington (16-11 overall, 9-7 Pac-10).
UCLA has the tougher task of trying to topple No. 10 Stanford or No. 26-ranked California.
The Ducks pulled off a surprising 62-42 victory against California last Thursday, before falling 74-56 to Stanford on Saturday.
“We’ve just need to kinda get the momentum to swing back,” Eleanor Haring said. “We want to go out and get the win against Washington State first because we’ve gotta get that one, we’ve got to get it going and we’re just gonna go out hard this weekend, leave everything on the floor and see what happens.”
Haring had a milestone game against Stanford on her Senior Day against Stanford: The senior forward scored 19 points and became the 20th player in program history to reach the 1,000 point mark.
Haring leads the team with an average of 13.3 points per game, and 130 total rebounds. Her stellar play this year has attracted the attention of WNBA scouts, and if the Ducks’ last match against Washington State is anything to go by, Haring might put up big numbers again tonight.
The Ducks beat the Cougars 66-55 at Mac Court in December, and Haring led the team in scoring with 20 points while senior forward Jessie Shetters had 11 points and nine rebounds.
But even though Shetters saw a couple of minutes of play last weekend and practiced with the team this week, the injured forward is not expected to return to action this weekend. The Ducks hope to have Shetters back in time for the Pac-10 tournament, but Oregon coach Bev Smith says they aren’t really thinking that far ahead yet.
“We’ve always prepared very well just keeping one thing in mind, and crossing that other bridge when we come to it,” Smith said. “Our focus right now is just on practice this week, and on getting some things done offensively and defensively to prepare for Washington State.”
After the Ducks’ last match, Smith lamented the team’s lack of intensity, but she does not think that will be a problem again this weekend.
“There are probably a number of reasons that we have to look at in terms of why we didn’t come (against Stanford) with the intensity and the focus that we gave to the Cal game,” Smith said. “Like the emotion of Senior Day, and the quick turnaround of games.”
Even though the Ducks have traditionally had very limited success on the road, Smith said the intensity level at practice this week was very positive, and that Oregon should be able to capitalize on that.
“On the road, we’re not in our comfort zone and there’s a number of things going on, so you just have to focus on not letting those distractions take away the intensity,” Smith said. “We still have some things to work on, but the intensity was there (in practice this week), the communication was there, and when that happens, we usually have a good chance of being successful against any team in the Pac-10.”
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