The Southern California women’s basketball team kept the Ducks running the court in the first half and took a one-point lead, 35-34, into the locker room.
All that running tired Oregon in the second half as the Ducks scored 22 points during that time.
For the 11th consecutive year, Oregon (11-10 overall, 3-8 Pacific-10 Conference) split its trip to Los Angeles with a 61-55 victory over UCLA on Thursday and a 71-56 loss to the Trojans (11-8, 8-3) on Saturday.
The Ducks hoped Thursday’s win would propel them against USC, who lost to Oregon State on Thursday, to the first sweep in Los Angeles in school history.
“Mentally, we were ready to take on the pressure,” Oregon head coach Bev Smith told KSCR (1320 AM) Radio. “We just physically didn’t finish those plays. I think we just ran out of a little gas. Playing as few people as we played in the last couple of days, it takes a little bit out of your legs.”
Oregon brought three players off the bench Thursday, and it showed Saturday as the five starters averaged 31 minutes against USC.
The Ducks tried to take advantage of Pac-10 Player of the Week Ebony Hoffman’s absence
after she was suspended for the first half of Saturday’s game for disciplinary reasons. It was the fifth time in the senior’s career that she
didn’t start a game.
When Hoffman returned to the court to open the second half, her fresh legs tore past Oregon. She scored 12 points in her 19 minutes of play.
There were 14 lead changes and seven ties in the game. The Ducks had their biggest lead, 42-38, with 13:40 remaining when the Trojans started to put Oregon away.
“We played 40 minutes against UCLA and we played 30 minutes today,” Smith said. “So out of 80 minutes, we played a good 70 minutes and for us that is very good progress. Certainly that is what we have to build on.”
Guard Brandi Davis led the Ducks for the sixth time this season with 19 points, scoring 16 in the first half. Freshman Eleanor Haring tied her career-high with 14 points. Haring also added five offensive rebounds and four steals in the losing effort.
Sophomore Chelsea Wagner, playing on a torn lateral meniscus in her left knee, scored two points in 15 minutes of play. In the win against UCLA, she led the Ducks with 17 points, but Saturday she missed both her three-point attempts.
“She’s going to have her moments where that knee is not going to respond as she would like it because it is an injured knee,” Smith said. “She’s very important for us, both offensively and defensively. I think Mike McNeill said it in the locker room, he was very impressed with Chelsea and her effort and her determination to help the team when she can.”
Point guard Corrie Mizusawa entered the game at No. 10 all-time on the single-season assists leaders list with 132 in 20 games. The junior, in her first season playing for Oregon, added 8 assists to move up to No. 7 on the list, passing Shaquala Williams’ freshman and junior seasons as well as passing Sheila Sattiewhite’s 1987-88 season.
“We’ve got a lot of people dinged up and we’re a little bit tired, but so is everyone else,” Smith said. “We’re going to take a couple days off as we head back to Eugene, get everybody rested and everybody feeling a little bit better about themselves physically, so that if mentally we ask ourselves to do something aggressive, we’ll be ready.”
The Ducks now have the week to prepare for the second Civil War of the season, Saturday at 7 p.m. in Corvallis.