Last Friday, No. 6 Oregon women’s basketball met Arizona looking to secure a share of the Pac-12 regular season title. They did just that in a 22-point, 83-54 defeat of the Wildcats. And after a 28-point Arizona beat down of the USC Trojans in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament, the Ducks and Wildcats will matchup again just a week later in the quarterfinals.
The Ducks enter the tournament as a No. 1 seed, earning a bye in the first round and fresh legs in the quarterfinal game, which tips Friday at 2 p.m. PT in Las Vegas. 
“We’re not afraid to be underdogs,” Arizona head coach Adia Barnes said. “When you’re an underdog, there’s no pressure. We can go out and have fun and just play basketball.”
The No. 8 seed Arizona Wildcats (17-12, 7-11) lost to the Ducks in both of the meetings this season, including last Friday’s matchup where Oregon shutout Arizona in the fourth quarter in a 19-0 run.
Arizona’s biggest threat, redshirt sophomore guard Aari McDonald, leads the Pac-12 in points, averaging 24.9 points a game, and is the third highest scoring shooter in the NCAA. Against the Ducks, she scored a team-high 20 in Eugene and a game-high 26 at home.
Barnes said she looks forward to a McDonald-Ionescu matchup.
“They have a lot of weapons and so do we,” she said. “We know [Ionescu’s] going to score; we just have to make it more difficult.”
To secure the Wildcats a second tournament game, McDonald put up 19 points against USC, adding seven assists and four rebounds. Behind her, the Wildcats shot 50 percent from the 3-point line and outscored USC in every quarter. Freshman forward Cate Reese added 19 points and 11 rebounds to the Wildcats’ effort.
When the Ducks hosted the Wildcats at home in January, Oregon held Arizona to just four in the first quarter off a 20-0 run.
The Ducks and Wildcats will see each other for third time tomorrow at 2 p.m. for Oregon’s first game of the tournament.
“We just can’t let them get hot. They like to facilitate, so we have to provide more ball pressure,” McDonald said. “They put their shoes on just like us.”
Follow Sierra Webster on Twitter @WebsterSierraE.