Oregon women’s basketball had the first possession of the game on Friday night. Sabrina Ionescu carried it up court and turned it over. USC went the other way to score a basket.
Then, Satou Sabally had possession but gave it up. Once again, USC went down the court to score.
“That’s what they feed off,” head coach Kelly Graves said. “We’re not the quickest team but we can’t be loose with the basketball, we can’t cross it over in front of somebody and expect a different result. It was pick-6 layup.”
The No. 9 Ducks were riddled with turnovers all night long as Oregon surrendered the ball 24 times, in which USC scored 31 points from, in Oregon’s 80-74 double-overtime win over the Trojans.
“It’s really funny, we’re 24-4 and they’re not all going to be pretty,” Graves said. “They’re not all going to be comfortable,you’ve got to win some games like this and we did it.”
As regulation closed, Oregon struggled to inbound the ball on three occasions.
With 30.8 seconds remaining, Oregon had an inbound from its offensive half. It was passed to Lexi Bando, who was locked up and jump ball was called.
The Ducks then inbounded the ball again to Lexi Bando, this time she muffled it and USC stepped out with the ball to give it back to Oregon. The Ducks inbounded the ball once again and this time Ionescu reached for it with a Trojan defender, who was ultimately deemed to touch the ball last after a video review.
Oregon escaped with the ball and found Ruthy Hebard, who was fouled as Oregon finally escaped the backcourt.
Ionescu and fellow guard Maite Cazorla combined for 15 turnovers, which Graves appeared most frustrated by.
“Some of the silly turnovers we’ve got to get rid of,” Graves said. “I don’t know how many times I said ‘you can’t cross over in front, you can’t cross over in front.’ How many times did I say that tonight?”
Hebard responded, “A lot,” to which Graves promptly replied, “8,000.”
The Ducks somehow managed to escape with the win despite the uncharacteristic 24 turnovers. With a big game ahead against No. 7 UCLA on Monday night, the Ducks will have to clean up their passing if they want any chance against the Bruins.
“We average 13 turnovers on the season, we’re actually one of the best in the country at that,” Graves said. “This is an aberration, this is one game. They turned us over a little bit last time too. Is it a trend? No. It was a poor job tonight. We’ll do better next time.”
Follow Shawn Medow on Twitter @ShawnMedow