The last time the women’s basketball team shared the court with Oregon State, it left Corvallis with a humiliating 70-41 defeat.
As the Ducks prepare to return to Corvallis for the first Civil War matchup of 2010, they have revenge on their minds.
“We owe everybody from last year,” sophomore forward Amanda Johnson said. “We lost to every team from the Pacific-10 Conference last year, at least once. So it’s time to come out and be like, ‘We’re not that same team anymore.”
This year, Oregon has good reason to be optimistic. With the arrival of a new year, a new coach and a new system, the team is confident it will be able to take the next step in its resurgence.
After all, last year is long forgotten.
Consider: The Ducks have yet to score less than 57 points this year, which itself is more than the team averaged per game all of last season. Oregon leads the nation with 87.1 points per game, and stands atop the Pac-10 with a 2-0 record.
Still, Oregon State is a formidable opponent in and of itself. The Beavers are 9-3 overall, and are off to a 1-1 start in the Pac-10.
“They’re a very good team,” head coach Paul Westhead said. “They’re one of the leaders in defense in the country, so they’re going to challenge both ways, offensively and defensively.”
The Beavers’ scoring defense ranks first in the Pac-10 and ninth in the country. The team gives up just 51.4 points per game, and has limited opponents to a mere .222 percentage from beyond the three-point line.
Thus, the game will come down to a clash of styles. While the Ducks prefer to play up-tempo and run opponents out of the gym, Oregon State relishes the opportunity to wear opponents down with suffocating defense.
“Pace of the game will be important for both teams,” Westhead said. “We obviously want to play at a very fast pace, and I’m not sure what pace they’ll be comfortable with. We’re going to try and push the ball and play the speed game.”
The Ducks will not back down easily and plan to make that clear early on Saturday.
“We’re just going to stay with our game plan,” senior guard Micaela Cocks said. “We’re going to really speed them up, get them shooting quick shots and attack them.”
Oregon had a valuable learning experience earlier in the season against a Wisconsin team with a similar “grind it out” strategy. The Badgers limited the Ducks to just 57 points, their lowest total of the season, and a .365 field goal percentage.
“We hit a couple stretches where we would run, we would get easy buckets,” Cocks said. “But then we played at their speed. So it’s good we had that practice, and then when we go to Oregon State we’ve learned that we have to create more on the defensive stops.”
Senior guard Taylor Lilley agreed with Cocks’ sentiments.
“I think we’re all realizing that (with) a lot of teams; that’s going to be their goal … to try to slow us down,” Lilley said. “Even when they’re trying to slow the ball down, it’s our job to make them go faster, and hopefully we can do that.”
Though the Beavers are known for their defense, they do not lack offensive firepower. Junior guard Talisa Rhea leads the team with 15.8 points per game, and scored 18 in her last matchup with the Ducks.
Sophomore forward Kirsten Tilleman is also off to a strong start, averaging 11.2 points and a team-high 7.8 rebounds. As a team, Oregon State shoots .405 from the field and sports an impressive +10.1 rebounding margin.
As a head coach, this will be Westhead’s official introduction to the madness of the Civil War. Still, the Civil War matchup during the football season proved to give him a taste of the all-important rivalry.
“That’s about 25 years of experience just in one game,” Westhead said. “Now I have a whole sense of what the Civil War is about. I haven’t personally been on the front line, but I understand the pride factor in both universities.”
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