PORTLAND, Ore. — When Oregon women’s basketball made the Sweet 16 two seasons ago, the Ducks were the underdogs. A 10-seed up against a three-seed Maryland team that had expected it would play No. 2 Duke. Instead playing a young Ducks team craving a third straight upset.

Oregon won that game and made its name known.

Now for the second straight year, No. 2-seed Oregon is expected to get to the Elite Eight. In its path is No. 6-seed South Dakota State.

The Ducks are not just favored to beat the Jackrabbits on Friday and make the Elite Eight for the third consecutive NCAA Tournament, they’re favored to knock off top-seed Mississippi State or No. 5 Arizona State on Sunday. But the Ducks have figured out how to use that to their advantage.

“What we do, how we talk about it, is you flip the psychology,” freshman Taylor Chavez said. “You practice like you’re the predator, you’re not the one being hunted. I think that makes it easier to play with a target on your back when you totally ignore that and flip it around. That’s been our talk — being the predator, not the prey.”

Once again in the Sweet 16, the Ducks are playing with a target on their backs. Sabrina Ionescu and Ruthy Hebard have only known runs through the Sweet 16 in their collegiate careers. As freshmen they embraced the underdog role, and now they’re summoning that.

“I think also now that this core group of us Ducks have been in this position, I think we know what to expect,” Ionescu said. “We know how hard and difficult it’s going to be to get to a Final Four, to get to a national championship. So I think that hunger is inside of us.”

With Ionescu leading the way with triple-double after triple-double, amounting to eight after her second-round feat against Indiana, the target on Oregon’s back has grown from conference opponents to national ones too.

“I’ve played them now three straight years, have a great deal of respect for Kelly and his program and those players, know how good they are,” Mississippi State head coach Vic Schaefer said.
The Ducks have played on the big stage against big teams. And they’ve won.

Oregon has won seven top-25 games this year, highlighted by an upset over a No. 4 Mississippi State at Matthew Knight Arena in December and a win over No. 9 Oregon State. The Ducks could get a rematch against Mississippi State on Sunday, but they’re weary of South Dakota State on Friday night.

“We’ve just got to make sure because we have a target on our back right now that we are the predator, that we have our eye on the prize,” senior Oti Gildon said. “Make sure whoever is in our way, we knock them down. They’re gonna beat people, they’re hunting for us.”
Follow Shawn Medow on Twitter @ShawnMedow