Entering Thursday’s game with No. 4 Stanford, the Oregon women’s basketball team knew it needed to put together a strong shooting performance to have a shot at a win.
Instead, in the Ducks’ 91-56 loss to the Cardinal, Oregon had one of its worst shooting games of the season.
The Ducks made only 19 of their 76 field goal attempts (25 percent) and, even worse, three of 32 shots from three-point range (9.4 percent).
The disconcerting part of that from Oregon’s perspective is that the Ducks do consider themselves a strong shooting team. Almost every player on the roster is capable of shooting from range, but few Ducks did that with any success Thursday night.
“We’re a good shooting team. We do that well most nights; we make shots,” Oregon coach Paul Westhead said. “Most nights we’ll have a player or two that are maybe off, but it was a grouping. It was contagious.”
Oregon’s shooting woes started from the opening tip.
The Ducks missed their first 15 field goal attempts of the game, as Stanford jumped to a 19-1 lead. That set the tone for a disappointing shooting night and put extra pressure on Oregon’s shooters to make baskets in a hurry.
“To come out and get jumped on is really hard,” Duck forward Amanda Johnson said. “Having that stress on us as shooters having one point for as long as we did I think was just a little bit difficult.”
While the Ducks eventually were able to cut Stanford’s lead to 10 late in the first half, they spent a great deal of energy getting back in the game, and seemed gassed in the latter parts of the second half.
“After that we just didn’t have the same intensity, same focus that we had in the first half,” Oregon guard Nia Jackson said.
While that surely didn’t help Oregon’s shooting success, Stanford‘s defense made life difficult for the Ducks’ shooters all night. According to Cardinal point guard Jeanette Pohlen, Stanford made a strong effort to get back in transition defense and prevent clean looks.
“I think we did a good job getting back in transition; a lot of times they get their threes from transition we really tried to focus on that,” Pohlen said. “I think we did a good job switching and helping each other out on threes.”
That said, the Ducks had plenty of good looks.
“I thought that some of our shots were good shots, we just weren’t making them,” Jackson said.
But, after a few of those good looks didn’t drop, Oregon began to press.
“When you begin to not make shots you’re rushing it, you’re not taking your time and that causes you to miss more and more shots,” Jackson said.
Johnson, who was responsible for all three of Oregon’s successful three-point shots, echoed Jackson’s sentiments that the Ducks’ slow start put overwhelming pressure on the shooters.
“I think you start putting more pressure on yourself,” Johnson said. “You’re like, ‘OK, I have to get one to get my rhythm,’ and if you never get one you keep kind of throwing them up there.”
The Ducks will have to rediscover their shooting touch in less than 48 hours, because they host California on Saturday.
“We just have to move forward and I think we can take the positives from tonight, the energy we had coming out tonight, and try to carry it over,” Johnson said.
A few more made baskets wouldn’t hurt, either.
“You can’t win if you can’t make shots,” Westhead said. “It’s a hard one for us because we’re an offensive-minded, shot-making team and when you’re 3-32 from the three-point line, it’s a hard one.”
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