Lackluster and lifeless: Oregon women’s basketball team has struggled to find an identity. Amid three-straight game postponements, key injuries to Nyara Sabally, Te-Hina Paopao and Endiya Rogers, a program that tends to control the landscape of collegiate women’s hoops has been a shadow of itself.
In big games, positives have been few and far between. Two days after falling to No. 2 Stanford 80-68, the Ducks took on the University of California.
However, this wasn’t the same Ducks team that took a seven-point loss to UC Davis or surrendered a 47-percent shooting night to Carroll College. It wasn’t the same team that narrowly avoided an embarrassing, last-second defeat to Portland.
On Sunday, it all clicked for the Ducks in an 88-51 win over the Golden Bears. They applied constant pressure with their full-court press, forcing 18 turnovers. They executed in the half-court, making the extra pass to find open shooters for an impressive 14 threes.
“Even after our Stanford game, it started to feel like everything was forming together,” Ducks’ forward Sydney Parrish said. “This was really the cherry on top of how we wanted to put it all together. We’d been seeing it in practice so to finally see it in a game is great.”
Entering the first week of conference play, one of the most influential players in college basketball and the face of Oregon women’s basketball wouldn’t even travel with the team. Redshirt junior center Sedona Prince was in health and safety protocols.
Her absence was masked by the performances from Paopao and Parrish.
Parrish, who has lacked consistency but showed she can be a lights-out shooter for short spurts, captained the three-point barrage. She knocked down back-to-back triples as the Ducks shot out to an early 16-2 lead.
That hot start seemed to be a continuation of the waning minutes of the Ducks lost to Stanford. After falling into a 15-point hole, the Ducks showed resilience. An emphatic and-one floater from Sabally cut the score to seven.
Although they fell short on Friday, the defeat may also serve as a turning point of this season. The Ducks showed toughness and transferred that late-game efficiency into a dominating victory against the Golden Bears.
Parrish went 5-5 from deep in the first half and finished with 21 points and five rebounds shooting 7-10 from the field.
“Sydney had a great game,” head coach Kelly Graves said. “When she can spread the court and shoot like that we’re really a different team.”
Paopao imposed her will on Cal’s defense early on. She used her tight handle to create space for two mid-range jump shots then netted a left-wing three to end the first quarter. Her first miss didn’t come until three minutes into the second quarter.
The sophomore guard showed no signs of the knee injury that kept her out for two weeks in December and limited her to 12 minutes in the Ducks game against Carroll College. She matched Parrish with 21 points of her own, shooting 8-13 from the field.
“I was impressed with Te-Hina tonight,” Graves said. “She knew when to score, but also knew when to set her teammates up.”
The outcome of the game was seemingly decided as the Ducks carried a 69-41 lead into the fourth quarter. Their performance on Sunday afternoon did not seem realistic just weeks ago.
Impressive in its own right, but this victory gives the Ducks momentum for the rest of their Pac-12 schedule. Prior to this victory, the postseason ceiling of this squad was in question.
Now the vibe has changed.
“You don’t want to go 1-1 but I feel really good about this road trip,” Graves said “We made advances and I felt like we improved as a team.”
After the Ducks kept it neck and neck with Stanford they put together their most impressive win of the season against Cal. Now, the question changes from what is the direction of this Ducks’ women’s basketball team to how high is its ceiling?
