Oregon women’s basketball made history Saturday night at Mathew Knight Arena, overcoming a 23-point deficit against Navy to claim the 72-64 victory.
After the final buzzer, the Ducks (4-3) celebrated the largest comeback in school history.
“What changed is that we actually for the first time since I’ve been here had pride in what we do,” star junior forward Jillian Alleyne said. “We can’t let people score on us — we can’t let people come into our place and be up 20 by halftime.“
To get the win the Ducks had to break the discipline of the Midshipmen, something that took almost the entire game to accomplish.
The average day in the life of a Midshipman is regimented to say the least. Sophomore guard Sarita Condie starts each day with a 0630 wake up time. She then goes through morning quarters formation at 0700, Calculus III with Optimization at 0755 and basketball practice at 1600. The rest of her day is filled with more class and film — with the only breaks being meals.
One imagines the rest of her teammates have just as busy of schedules.
Who knows whether such a regimented schedule has any correlation to success on the basketball court? What we do know after the game is that the Mids came out in the first half and shut down Oregon.
Eleven Duck turnovers and just 36% shooting from the floor in the first saw Navy (4-5) head into the locker room up 45-24.
“It started in the warm-ups,” Alleyne said. “We didn’t have very much energy coming out and that rolled over into how we played.”
The Mid’s offense was nothing to write home about, simple yet effective. The guards would drive into the paint, kicking the ball back out for open jump shots.
Though the feast of open shots was spread pretty evenly, forward Taylor Dunham stood out. She finished with 15 points, shooting 4-7 from deep.
The few times Navy missed, well-positioned players were able to either corral the rebound or tip it back to another shooter. This has been a problem for Oregon throughout the season, as it has searched for a second rebounder to pair alongside Alleyne.
Speaking of Alleyne, notch another double-double for a player who basically gets it just by walking out on the court. She finished with 19 points and 16 rebounds for her 16^th straight dating back to last season.
The real story was the emotional change in the Ducks coming out of the break. They began to play with passion and fire, something that hasn’t always been apparent this year.
“We played with a lot of heart,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said. “We had every opportunity to lay over and die and we didn’t.”
The hero for Oregon was senior guard Amanda Delgado, as her efforts late in the second half helped finally break Navy’s composure. Delgado nailed two back-to-back corner threes to cut the lead to 54-52, the closest it had been since the opening minutes.
“I didn’t even look at the score,” Delgado said.
The Ducks later took a 55-54 lead, thanks once again to Delgado after she split a trip to the line. Delgado finished with 13 points.
“She is a smart player,” coach Graves said of Delgado. “We have talked a lot about competitive spirit in the last week or so, and I think Amanda’s got it. Before I went in and talked to them at halftime I heard her in there getting on them.”
The issues in the first were also cleaned up. The Ducks only added two more turnovers and improved their shooting to 48.4% in the second.
“We just didn’t throw the ball away to the wrong team, there was no magic,” coach Graves said. “My coach used to say the most aggressive team commits the fewest fouls and the fewest turnovers because you are always a step ahead.”
The Ducks were able to hold on and claim the win.
Next on the schedule for Oregon is a home game against Northern Arizona on Saturday, though coach Graves joked after the game that his team has to overcome finals week first.
“Their euphoric high tonight will come crashing down in the morning when they go ‘oh man, I have to study’,” coach Graves said.
Follow Christopher Keizur on Twitter @chriskeizur