They did fine without her last year and didn’t need her Wednesday night, either.
Battling the flu, Shaquala Williams, the star guard of the Oregon women’s basketball team, played just eight minutes in the Ducks’ 72-61 victory over St. Mary’s at McArthur Court.
In the first round game of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, Williams was held scoreless for the first time in more than three years, when she was kept off the scoreboard at Washington State on Feb. 11, 1999. Until Wednesday, Williams had never not scored in a game she’d played at Mac Court.
The 2000 Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Year, who sat out last season with a knee injury, took just two shots against St. Mary’s.
“You could definitely tell there was something wrong with her,” Oregon forward Cathrine Kraayeveld said.
But you couldn’t tell there was anything wrong with the Ducks, particularly in the second half.
St. Mary’s Julie Morris scored the first basket of the second half to tie the game at 30, but Oregon went on an 18-10 run to take a 48-40 lead with 11:07 to play.
Junior guard Kourtney Shreve, playing extended minutes in Williams’ absence, hit a deep three-pointer with 9:19 left to extend Oregon’s lead to 10. Just over a minute later, Shreve blocked a Carey Noakes three-point attempt and went in for any easy layin to give the Ducks a 55-42 lead, their largest of the game.
“Sometimes she’s the biggest spark,” senior guard Jamie Craighead said of Shreve.
Williams is expected to be in the lineup this weekend when the Ducks face the winner of the Oregon State-Hawaii first-round WNIT game, to be played tonight
in Corvallis.
“Shaq has been struggling with the flu, and it kept her in bed for a few days last week,” Oregon first-year head coach Bev Smith said. “She’ll be fine, and we will be a loaded deck in our next game.
In the single-elimination WNIT, the Ducks said they were not panicked without Williams.
“I never felt like it was going to be our last game,” Craighead said. “We know how to pick it up when we need to. I was never worried.