BEN SCHORZMAN | SPORTS REPORTER
The Oregon women’s basketball team is young. Last year, head coach Bev Smith signed six freshmen to compensate for losing five seniors. This year, the Ducks picked up three new recruits to replace senior guard Kaela Chapdelaine and junior transfer Tamika Nurse. All told, that’s nine players with one year or less of experience at the college level, and the name of the game will be how quickly the freshmen and sophomore players can step up to fill roles.
The play of the three freshmen, Amanda Johnson, Darriel Gaynor and Jasmin Holliday, will be especially important if Oregon wants to improve on its 7-11, seventh-place finish in the Pacific-10 Conference and achieve its goal of making it to the post season.

“Our goal is to make it to the NCAA Tournament,” junior Micaela Cocks said. “We said that at the beginning of the fall, and this the most prepared I’ve ever felt. I’m really excited for the season.”
Cocks’ excitement and feeling of preparedness comes partly from her own experience this summer at the Beijing Olympics with the 2008 New Zealand National Team. There she played against teams like the gold-medal U.S.A. National Team, and she says the experience will help her this year as a Duck.
“The confidence I have after the Olympics is great,” she said. “Knowing that those players went through the same experience at college that I did helps, and now I can bring that back to the college level after seeing what they do.”
Smith looks for Cocks and fellow junior Taylor Lilley to not only carry the scoring load, but lead the maturing team. As a sophomore, Cocks averaged just 6.7 points per game and those numbers have already increased this year, perhaps showing she’s getting used to her role as an offensive threat. She’s averaging 19.67 points per game through the first three games (including two exhibition games) and in the season opener against San Jose State last Saturday, Cocks led Oregon with 22 points.
The other part of the team’s core, Lilley, will first have to get healthy before she can help out. She has only played in one game this fall due to shin problems and after playing in the final exhibition game against Western Oregon on Nov. 10, she sat out Saturday’s game in California. She is currently listed as day-to-day.

The one game Lilley did play in, however, showed why Oregon needs her in the starting lineup. She covered the stat line, netting 16 points, eight assists, five rebounds and four steals.
“It’s a noticeable difference when (Lilley) is on the court,” Cocks said after the Western Oregon game. “The tempo goes up and we are more competitive.”
Three other injuries in the pre-season have also affected the makeup of the team and forced Smith to use her freshmen more than even she thought she would. Redshirt senior Rita Kollo (broken right foot) isn’t expected back to the team until early January, sophomore Nicole Canepa is still recovering from an ankle sprain and is day-to-day, and sophomore Nia Jackson tore her ACL in her left knee and is out for the season.
That gave Oregon only nine healthy players for the opener, but it might be a blessing in disguise for the team. Having to play their youngest players a lot of minutes will force the Ducks to mature, and when the other players return, Smith will suddenly have a team that has been battle-tested.
In the San Jose State game, Gaynor, Johnson and Holliday played decently. Combined, the three true freshmen had 14 points on six of 24 shooting; good enough for 25 percent. The numbers aren’t exactly Candace Parker quality, but they aren’t expected to post big numbers – just play decently.
“We want to be the team that plays the best together,” Smith said at Oregon’s media day in October. “The team has put in a lot of work last spring and this summer getting ready, and because of that we are getting there.”
The hard work Smith mentions includes the post players. The three inside trees of 6-3 sophomore Ellie Manou, the 6-5 Canepa and the 6-4 sophomore Ellyce Ironmonger will again anchor a defense that only allowed 60.6 points per game in the Pac-10 last year. So far this year, Manou has been the standout of the three, getting 19 points and 12 rebounds against San Jose State.
Looking ahead to the Pac-10 season, it will be another tough road for Oregon. They’re picked to finish sixth in the conference, behind national runner-up No. 8 Stanford, No. 7 California and No. 18 Arizona State.
That doesn’t bother Smith, who says that the non-conference schedule, which includes a game against No. 10 Baylor at home on Dec. 20, will help her team for Pac-10 competition.
“I think we really have a chance to get to the top echelon of the Pac-10,” she said.
“We have to get out there and play hard, rebound, share the ball amongst the girls,” Cocks said. “I think it’s going to be a really good season.”
But as the team prepares for tonight’s home game against Pacific, getting healthy remains the top priority. Because without the offensive scoring of Lilley or the inside presence of Canepa, the Ducks might just have to settle for the “other” tournament: the National Invitational Tournament.
BEN SCHORZMAN
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