After spending the last two weeks on the road, the Oregon Ducks host Colorado on Friday night. It’s a big matchup for both teams, who are looking to make a jump from the bottom of the Pac-12 standings.
Here’s everything you need to know:
Oregon vs. Colorado
Time: 6 p.m.
Where: Matthew Knight Arena, Eugene, Oregon
TV: Pac-12 Oregon and Pac-12 Mountain
Online: Pac-12 Network Live Stream
Projected starters:
Oregon (12-6, 2-4 Pac-12)
Sabrina Ionescu (13.8 ppg, 6.7 rpg)
Maite Cazorla (6.6 ppg, 4.3 apg)
Lexi Bando (12.0 ppg, 1.2 apg)
Ruthy Hebard (14.7 ppg, 8.1 rpg)
Mallory McGwire (7.2 ppg, 4.2 rpg)
Colorado (11-6, 1-5 Pac-12)
Kennedy Leonard (18.8 ppg, 5.6 apg)
Alexis Robertson (11.5 ppg, 3.5 rpg)
Haley Smith (10.7 ppg, 5.6 rpg)
Zoe Correal (4.8 ppg, 5.2 rpg)
Makenzie Ellis (4.8 ppg, 3.7 ppg)
What to watch for:
— Oregon head coach Kelly Graves will coach against J.R. Payne, who had previously played and coached for Graves, and is now the head coach at Colorado.
“I love her to death,” said Graves on Thursday. “I truly think of her like family, and I think she feels the same.”
— Freshman Sabrina Ionescu will play her first Pac-12 game at Matthew Knight Arena. Ionescu broke her thumb, missing the start of conference play before returning on the road at Stanford. The following game, she hit a buzzer-beater at then No. 20 Cal to give Oregon the weekend split.
— Ruthy Hebard continues to impress those nationally. The freshmen scored a career high 29 points in Sunday’s loss at UCLA. She leads the team in scoring with 14.7 points a game.
“Ruthy has been incredible,” said Lexi Bando. “You’re going to see really big things from her.”
— Oregon will look to take better care of the basketball after turning the ball over a combined 41 times in the Ducks’ last two games at USC and UCLA.
“Once we learn how to be patient with the ball, we’ll be a lot better,” said Hebard.
Follow Cole Kundich on Twitter @ckundich