With four regular season games remaining, the Oregon women’s basketball team has one goal in mind: finish strong.
Oregon’s first crack at achieving its goal comes tonight when the Ducks battle Arizona State at Wells Fargo Arena at 5:30.
The game marks the start of the Ducks’ final Pacific-10 Conference road trip of the season, which includes a matchup with Arizona on Saturday.
“We just want to finish strong,” guard Chelsea Wagner said. “The season has been kind of frustrating for us. (We want to play) the next four games really strong so we can go into the Pac-10 Tournament with the momentum of winning some games.”
Winning games hasn’t come easily for the Ducks this season. Injuries to Cathrine Kraayeveld, Corrie Mizusawa, Kedzie Gunderson, Wagner and others have taken a toll. Oregon’s (12-12 overall, 4-10 Pac-10) chances of finishing any higher than eighth in the conference are slim to none. With that in mind, the Ducks look to play the role of spoiler as they close their season against three of the Pac-10’s top teams, starting with Arizona State.
The Sun Devils (15-8, 9-5) sit in fourth place but trail first-place Stanford by only two games.
“When you’re at where we are in the standings, you like to be a spoiler,” Oregon assistant coach Allison McNeill said. “That’s one of our motivations is go down (to Arizona) and try to knock off one of those teams at home.”
In the season’s first meeting, Arizona State overcame an eight-point second-half deficit on Jan. 24 to defeat Oregon 69-67 at McArthur Court. Junior guard Betsy Boardman led the way with 13 points for the Sun Devils. The Beaverton native also made a huge defensive play, stripping the ball from Oregon forward Eleanor Haring with less than 10 seconds remaining to seal the victory.
Boardman (12 points per game), forward Kristen Kovesdy (10.4) and guard Kylan Loney (9.2) are the Sun Devils’ main offensive threats.
Oregon plans to counter Boardman with its best defender, forward Kedzie Gunderson. The Ducks were without the services of Gunderson during the teams’ first meeting, after the 6-foot junior was forced to leave the game with a knee injury just 35 seconds into the contest.
Gunderson said she’s looking forward to playing Thursday and wants to step up offensively as well.
“I love playing against (Arizona State) because they pressure and I love to drive on them,” Gunderson said. “… I missed out on the first one so I definitely want to get in on the second one and wreak some havoc if I can.”
Oregon will likely need a big offensive performance from Wagner if the Ducks are going to hand Arizona State its second home loss of the season. The Springfield native scored 20 points and knocked down five three-pointers in the season’s first meeting, which will likely cause the Sun Devils to keep a defender on her around the perimeter.
McNeill said Wagner will have to play aggressively if she wants to be an offensive factor.
“The only thing to counteract when someone says ‘We’re not going to give you a three’ is Chelsea is going to have to take the ball to the basket and get fouled,” McNeill said. “We will set some screens for her and we will work to penetrate and try to kick to her.”
Wagner, who is playing on a torn lateral meniscus in her left knee, said she knows she’ll have a tough night in front of her.
“I’m sure they’ll overplay me a little more than usual,” Wagner said. “I’ll just continue to work to get open.”