The Oregon women’s basketball team is learning just how hard life is without 6-foot-6-inch mainstay Jessie Shetters in the post.
Carolyn Ganes is gamely filling in, but without an important part of the Ducks front court, California took advantage of Oregon’s lack of depth in a 65-56 win Saturday afternoon at Haas Pavilion.
Oregon – with nine players available to participate, eight of whom play consistently – saw the bigger Cal team hold a 42-30 edge on the boards. Cal had 14 of those boards come on the offensive end.
“We absolutely just have to become a better rebounding team,” coach Bev Smith said in a broadcast interview. “I thought defensively, we did some really good things, and we let those second-chance points that Cal got hurt us.”
With Ganes inserted into the starting lineup, the 6-foot-3-inch post had to deal with the versatile Cal front court of 6-foot-3-inch forward/center Devanei Hampton, 6-foot-1-inch forward Ashley Walker and 6-foot-5-inch center Rama N’diaye.
Lauren Greif, a Portland native, led Cal with a career-high 19 points, followed by Walker and Hampton with 13, and Natasha Vital had 11. Cal coach Joanne Boyle notched her 100th career win as a head coach in the victory that improved Cal’s record to 15-4 overall and 6-3 in the Pacific-10 Conference.
Oregon slipped to 10-8 and 2-6 in the conference with two games this week against Oregon State.
Oregon held tough Saturday. They trailed by five points at halftime and pulled even at 32 with 15:58 left after opening the second half on an 8-3 run. Oregon again tied it at 34, but Greif hit consecutive three-pointers to put Cal ahead, 40-34, and Vital added a jumper to make it 42-34.
Ganes sank her only three-pointer of the day to make it a one-possession game. Cal’s Keanna Levy made a lay-up and Oregon point guard Tamika Nurse had two free throws to trail, 51-48.
Vital answered with a lay-up and Greif had two free throws to give Cal a controlling 55-48 lead.
Nurse and Ganes scored 14 points apiece for Oregon. Ganes had nine rebounds and back-up center Jamie Hawkins had arguably her best game in an Oregon uniform with seven points and seven rebounds in 24 minutes.
“She was real efficient,” Smith said. “I think defensively, she pounded and she battled and she tried to do her best against some big, athletic post players that she’s probably not seen in a long time.”
Eleanor Haring, battling foul trouble, struggled to two points on 1-of-5 shooting in 18 minutes.
The typically smooth Oregon team from deep made just 4 of 13 three-pointers.
One of those deep threats, Ganes, shot 6-of-17 overall and 1-of-5 from three-point range while playing 38 minutes and having to defend Cal’s post players.
“It’s not only just the running up and down the floor that Carolyn did, but she again, was banging and pushing and shoving against Hampton and Walker and they take a lot out of you, and then you got to go the other way and we look for Carolyn a lot right now scoring, and I think we got her some good looks, and I think had she hit those it might have been a little different story because that would have put some pressure on them,” Smith said.
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