Oregon (11-18, 2-14 Pac-12) continued its trip up north with a visit to Pullman to face the Washington State Cougars (17-12, 6-10 Pac-12). 

Neither team showed much intensity, as the Ducks lost their eleventh straight and moved to the bottom of the Pac-12 standings. 

Each team started out the game struggling on offense, but both were getting shots up. It was 6-4 through the first five minutes of the game and neither team looked like it had any edge on the other in the early going. 

Both the Cougars and the Ducks saw scoring droughts of more than two minutes and Oregon ended the period on a field goal drought of more than four minutes. Half of its eight points of the quarter came from free throws. 

All eight points in that quarter came from Phillipina Kyei, who finished with 23 in the game and14 rebounds. Kyei showed her class all game, but her teammates struggled offensively and it seemed like a one-woman show the whole time. 

The first half ended 25-20 after a 6-0 run from the Ducks over the last minute and a half of the first half. The Ducks shot 28% from the field in the first half, with Kyei, Grace VanSlooten, Chance Gray and Kennedy Basham the only ones on the board. The Cougars weren’t much better, shooting 36%. 

Oregon didn’t make a single 3-pointer in the first two frames, which meant that 14 out of its 20 first half points came from inside the paint. 

Washington State went 4-4 from deep in the third quarter and scored 25 points in the quarter to take a 16 point lead going into the last frame. The Ducks had no answer defensively this quarter, as even their increase in production on offense was not enough to keep up. 

The story of this game was that each team had a similar progression throughout the game, each shooting badly in the first half and bouncing back in the second half shooting better, but playing less defense. 

The Cougars continued to pull away during the entire second half and started laying it on the Ducks. 

Kyei continued her dominance in the paint in the latter portion of the game, but Oregon only made one 3-pointer the entire game, which came in the third quarter. 

This was likely due to Gray having her worst performance of the season, scoring five points on 2-17 shooting with just one assist. 

The Ducks’ problem this season has been their trouble finding ways to get scorers outside of the big three involved. In this game, it was apparent what would happen if one or two of the big three didn’t show up and one did. 

Because Kyei is so dominant in the paint, the Cougars didn’t even need to defend her, they just needed to make sure the other scorers were maintained. 

Since Kyei can’t play 40 minutes a game, there were times where Gray or VanSlooten had to force shots because they had little support elsewhere. 

Oregon is a young team and as the season winds down, these issues will be the most important to figure out going into another season with Kelly Graves. 

The Ducks look ahead to Thursday where they face the California Golden Bears (16-11, 6-9 Pac-12) on Thursday in Matthew Knight Arena.