PORTLAND, Ore. — Redshirt sophomore Lydia Giomi doesn’t play a lot of minutes. 
But one’s amount of minutes don’t matter, especially in a game as intense as Oregon’s Elite Eight win against No. 1 seed Mississippi State.
“The important thing I tell her is that, ‘When you do go out there and play, play with heart and play as fast as you can. If you pick up fouls, don’t worry about it because you’re gonna come back and sit on the bench anyway. But when you get those minutes, make those minutes count in every single moment,’” said Giomi’s father, Mike.
In a game where the Ducks needed height and length more than ever, Giomi’s power-play of a first half helped Oregon slowly take down MSU’s biggest threat: 6-foot-7 Teaira McCowan.
“She helped us a lot,” Senior guard Maite Cazorla said. “It’ hard to guard Teaira and I think that [Giomi] did a really good job. She’s just been everything whenever she gets to be on the floor.”
McCowan has been described as a mountain, a bully and a wall of a weapon in the paint. She wears a constant expression of mean intensity and swats away any shot on basket. She owns the NCAA Tournament record with 237 rebounds. 
Giomi is just an inch shorter than McCowan. She’s not on any record lists for rebounds nor points and spends most games on the bench.
Her stat line from Sunday’s game reads just one rebound and two personal fouls, but don’t let that fool you. The Seattle native pulled apart the machine that is McCowan with every clutch screen, every aggressive rebound and every forceful box under the basket.
Both on offense and defense Giomi was there. She never kept her eyes of McCowan.
“It was really hard,” Giomi said. “She is so good. My legs were burning from like a minute and half of guarding her. She is just so strong, obviously like her legs are just two of mine. She’s also just incredible at locating and relocating the rebound and she just knows how to utilize her size.”
Giomi’s lone rebound came in the second quarter. Forward Satou Sabally missed a layup under the basket. Giomi maneuvered herself around the McCowan wall and grabbed the rebound. She stepped out of a pile of MSU defenders, some even on the ground, and passed the ball to Sabrina Ionescu, who took the ball atop the arc and launched a long jumper to get Oregon ahead 35-33.
McCowan was left defeated under the basket as she turned and hopelessly watched the ball swish through the net.
On defense it was the same scene. Giomi never left McCowan’s side. Raising hands and hip-shoving, Giomi made it difficult for McCowan to reach for any rebound. By constantly boxing her out from under the basket, Giomi allowed room for her teammates to grab defensive rebounds and turnover plays.
“It’s a little bit of a tunnel vision,” Giomi said. “That’s kind of what I say to myself, ‘Just buckle down no matter how long you are in here for. Just buckle down. See what you can do.’”
All Giomi needed was five-and-a-half minutes in the first half of Sunday’s game to prove her impact on Oregon’s team. Just five-and-a-half minutes to outplay and out-defend McCowan when Oregon needed it most. Five-and-a-half minutes to conquer the McCowan mountain and propel the Ducks to their first Final Four.
“She may not give us a ton of minutes, but they’re important minutes, and they were tonight,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves said.
Follow Maggie Vanoni on Twitter @maggie_vanoni