For the second consecutive season, the Oregon Ducks will play in the Pac-12 Tournament final as the top-seeded team against a No. 2 seed Stanford Cardinal.
“I’m excited and happy we get to play again and play tomorrow for another championship,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves said at the post-game press conference Saturday night. “I’m really proud of our team.”
The Ducks (29-3) defeated the fourth-seeded UCLA Bruins in overtime, 88-83, Saturday evening to advance past the semifinals. UCLA caught up to Oregon about two and a half minutes into the third quarter before pushing the game into overtime. The extra five minutes were just as neck-and-neck as the first 40. Oregon’s Satou Sabally tied the game at 83 with a minute left in the game, before free throws from her and Sabrina Ionescu secured Oregon the win in the remaining 4 seconds.
“Oregon has a great team, they shoot the ball well, they have a lot of talented players,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer told the Pac-12 Network after Stanford’s semifinal win on Saturday. “We have to play our game and have a lot of confidence.”
The Oregon win marks the second straight season the team has defeated the Bruins to advance to the finals.
“Two years in a row we played a classic against them,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves. “This time, again, we were able to come out on top. … Tonight we showed our championship mettle and made plays when we really need to. We played a good basketball game. This was women’s basketball at its highest.”
Oregon earned its ticket to the semifinals by winning its quarterfinal game against No. 8 seed Arizona, 77-63, Friday afternoon.
The Cardinal also won their quarterfinal on Friday, defeating the No. 7 seed Cal Bears, 72-54.
Stanford (27-4) beat the No. 11 seed Washington Huskies, 72-61 in the later semifinal Saturday night to earn their third straight ticket to the tournament’s finals.
The Huskies were riding the momentum from upsetting the No. 2 seed Oregon State Beavers on Friday, 68-67. However, they simply could not keep up with the Cardinal, who dominated the game from the very beginning. Stanford led as much as 22 points over Washington, with Alanna Smith’s team-high double-double of 21 points and 12 rebounds rebounds.
Sunday’s matchup will be just the second meeting between the Ducks and Cardinal this season.
“We’re excited,” Stanford’s DiJonai Carrington told the Pac-12 Network after Stanford’s semifinal. “That was obviously a really big loss and we’ve grown so much since then. We’ve learned to take better shots, we’re taking smarter shots. We’re more under control. In that game we got flustered.”
On February 10, a then-ranked No. 3 Oregon handed Stanford its largest loss under long-time head coach Tara VanDerveer, dominating the Cardinal 88-48. The Ducks’ win marked its first at the Maples Pavilion in 32 years. Ionescu led the Ducks with 27 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.
“I know that we’re capable of it, and if we were able to stop them defensively and get them out of their rhythm we’d be able to score however we wanted offensively,” Ionescu told The Register-Guard after Oregon’s win in Stanford. “We have so many threats on the offensive end, inside and outside. … But I never thought we’d win by 40.”
Last year Oregon beat Stanford 77-57 to win the program’s first-ever tournament title. The season before that, in 2017, the then-No.2 seeded Cardinal halted then No. 6-seeded Oregon’s tournament run in the semifinals with a 71-56 victory.
The 2019 Pac-12 Tournament championship game between the Ducks and Cardinal will tip off Sunday at 5 p.m. on ESPN2.
Follow Maggie Vanoni on Twitter @maggie_vanoni
