Favorite dishes during the Thanksgiving holiday tend to include turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes.
But the Oregon women’s basketball team hopes to have feasted on Pilots by Friday night.
The No. 14 Ducks take on unranked Portland, a member of the West Coast Conference, 7 p.m. Friday at McArthur Court. Both teams have won their last two games.
Oregon has a historical advantage heading into Friday’s matchup. When playing home-opening games, the Ducks are 26-1 at The Pit.
“It’s a great in-state rivalry, so we’re glad it’s at home, as usual,” Oregon head coach Jody Runge said. “We’re very excited to get to play again, I know the kids are excited to get better.”
Oregon sailed to 14th in the Associate Press poll after defeating No. 19 North Carolina State and No. 16 Wisconsin at the GlaxoWellcome Invitational in Raleigh, N.C. In doing so, the Ducks toppled ranked teams in back-to-back games for the first time under head coach Jody Runge, and possibly for the first time ever in Oregon history.
Stanford, now ranked No. 18, is the only other Pac-10 team in the polls. The Cardinal was picked in preseason polls to win the conference title.
“There’s pressure on us, but not as much as we could have on us,” sophomore point guard Kourtney Shreve said. “Now that we are No. 14 we’ve got to keep winning, not lose the games we’re supposed to win and let our ranking fall like last year.”
Through two exhibition games and two preseason games, the Ducks have continued to define themselves without injured point guard Shaquala Williams, their leading scorer last season.
Angelina Wolvert led Oregon in scoring through the weekend, scoring 19 against Wisconsin and 22 against North Carolina State.
The duo of forward Alyssa Fredrick and guard Alissa Edwards have also been key contributors off Oregon’s bench. Fredrick grabbed a team-high 13 rebounds against the Badgers and N.C. State combined, while Edwards played a career-high 34 minutes against Wisconsin and was solid on defense.
“I’m trying to keep improving, if anything,” Fredrick said. “It’s still early in the season, and I want to get better before the Pac-10s.”
Oregon players decided to practice Tuesday instead of taking the day off, which Runge said is “very exciting as a coach.”
“Obviously, they’re very tired today,” Runge said. “But they still wanted to practice and work on things we weren’t executing as well as we would have liked to in the tournament.”