Top-seeded Oregon women’s basketball will take on No. 4 seed UCLA at 6 p.m. PT in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinal for the second straight season.
The Ducks defeated No. 8 seed Arizona 74-63 on Friday while the Bruins fought off a comeback by Arizona State in their quarterfinal game on the same day.
Oregon is short-handed. Taylor Chavez is out with a right foot injury, Ruthy Hebard is still dealing with her knee injury she picked up in the Ducks’ loss at Oregon State, Maite Cazorla is battling the flu and Satou Sabally picked up an arm/elbow injury in Oregon’s win over Arizona.
Sabally told the Register-Guard after the game “It’s not bad. I just fell. It’s fine. … It’s going to be bruised and probably swollen.”
“Being not 100 percent definitely sucks, but we definitely did a good job grinding it out and we’re going to do that the rest of the season,” Hebard said in the post-game press conference.
Like Oregon, UCLA had a bye on Thursday, but the Bruins played a close game on Friday. After a heavy UCLA lead at halftime, the Sun Devils pushed back in the second half, but never took the lead, despite coming within one point of the Bruins multiple times. UCLA hung on to win 73-69.
Oregon played a back-and-forth first half against Arizona on Friday but the Ducks’ 40-28 halftime lead was comfortable with Oregon dominating the boards 18-6.
Oregon split the series with the Bruins this season as the Ducks won in Westwood while the Bruins beat a Ruthy Hebard-less Ducks in Eugene to give Oregon one of its two Pac-12 losses this year.
“They’re so aggressive,” head coach Kelly Graves said in the Arizona post-game press conference. We didn’t do so well against tonight’s pressure. We’re going to see it tonight, plus another level tomorrow. We’re going to have to be sure to pass it to the team in white because when you turn it over against UCLA, they’re quicker, they’re more athletic than we are. We can’t catch them.”
UCLA’s Japreece Dean scored 24 points — none from 3-point range — and tallied seven assists to lead the Bruins. Michaela Onyenwere went 7-of-8 for 20 points in the quarterfinal win.
Against Oregon last month, Kennedy Burke stole the show with 29 points. The Ducks will have to find a way to halt the multi-threat offense.
Last season, Oregon beat UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinal en route to the tournament title. Sabrina Ionescu was a key in that win, and on Saturday the Ducks will once again need a big performance from their star guard.
Ionescu, last season’s tournament MVP, became Oregon’s fifth player in program history with 1,800 points. She and the Ducks will have to take care of business on Saturday in Las Vegas.
“If we take care of the ball and spread the floor and do the things that we normally do, we’re going to be OK,” Graves said. “Last time we didn’t play them with Ruthy so we can show them something different than last game.”
Follow Shawn Medow on Twitter @ShawnMedow
