The Ducks are in the Bay Area this weekend, but they won’t be enjoying the scenes or the unusually warm weather. Instead, they have two games against two of the top-10 teams in the country: No. 6 California and No. 4 Stanford.
The first half of the gauntlet starts tonight when Oregon (9-15 overall, 5-8 Pacific-10 Conference) takes on the Golden Bears (20-3, 11-1). The last time these two teams played on Jan. 24, Cal jumped all over the Ducks, holding them to just 10 points in the first half. This time around, Oregon’s chances of winning the game depend on the team not digging a big hole to start the game.
“Against Washington, we were really able to execute on offense and on defense and run them through our plays,” said Oregon head coach Bev Smith. “I think we have to take that type of execution into the Cal game. If you look at the first half of the game here, we didn’t do that. We took the first shot that was there for us, we tried to force things, and we didn’t let our offense open things up for us.”
Executing for the Ducks means they are running their offense through the posts. Smith always wants to try to get the ball inside on teams, but against the Bears in Eugene, the posts were held to 17 points combined, and sophomore forward Ellie Manou had just four points.
“Offensively, we need to be more productive,” Manou said. “We got some good looks in that game, but we just need to finish. We need to be assertive and play our team game, and create shots in the offense.”
That should be easier, considering the posts are coming off one of their best games against Washington. The team outrebounded the Huskies, and Manou added 18 points and nine rebounds. All around, the posts were getting easier shots, and it’s something the team hopes to build on against Cal.
But perhaps the biggest issue for Oregon is preparing for Cal’s firepower. The Bears are second in the conference in scoring margin, and forward Ashley Walker is leading the conference in scoring at 20.1 points per game.
“They have great post players in Ashley Walker and Devanei Hampton,” Manou said. “That’s going to be a challenge for us. We’ll try to beat them through our team defense. It’s about communicating with even our guards and being on the same page.”
Junior guard Micaela Cocks agrees, saying the key to stopping the Bears is to make them play defense for longer then they want and lengthening possessions.
“We didn’t make them play defense last time,” she said. “This time around we have to make the extra pass and get it to the open player’s hands. We need to use the shot clock to our advantage and make them work for the full 30 seconds.”
Defense has a direct correlation with effort, and Smith hopes that with the end of its six-game conference losing streak, the team is again at a good place, and the effort will be where it needs to be.
“We really needed to put some lessons on the floor that we learned from the Washington State and Arizona games,” Smith said. “We wanted to get better and move forward, and I think our team did that. We are ready to get after it and execute.”
And even though Cal has won the last six games against the Ducks, Smith thinks the win against the Huskies was exactly what the team needed.
“They understand they have the talent, the experience and the belief in each other now,” she said
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