Oregon women’s basketball needed to stay mad.
On Friday night, Diana Taurasi spoke to the Ducks. Amongst all that was said, Sabrina Ionescu and the Ducks took two words out of the entire speech and used it as their mantra for Saturday night’s game.
“Diana told us to stay mad,” Ionescu said. “That was what we said before the game and at halftime. We didn’t want to come out complacent, we didn’t want to come out excited that we were only down by four at half, so we came out in that third quarter and we came out hard. We stayed mad just like she had told us.”
Staying mad helped Ionescu and the No. 1 Ducks become the first collegiate team to beat Team USA since Tennessee back on Nov. 7, 1991. Oregon relied on its star players to win, 93-86.
“I was just really, really proud of the team,” head coach Kelly Graves said. “We never really talked about winning or losing, we just talked about doing our best. You saw that they started to believe.”
Oregon was trailing 42-38 at the end of the first half and Ionescu only mustered five points through two quarters of play. The Ducks stayed in the game due to the play of Ruthy Hebard, as she finished the first half with 14 points and nine rebounds.
Ionescu had an entirely different second half. She scored 20 points in the third quarter and made all but 10 of her team’s 30 points in the third quarter.
“I didn’t think I did enough in that first half offensively. I think I was a little bit tentative,” Ionescu said. “I saw the game change and the floor open up and the game kind of slowed down for me and my teammates.”
Team USA, during this run of playing against collegiate teams, has buried the opposition in the fourth quarter. Team USA outscored its last three opponents (Texas A&M, Stanford, Oregon State) in the fourth quarter by a combined 72-43 total.
Oregon entered the fourth quarter up by one, and the game began to open for Satou Sabally.
Sabally drilled a key 3-point shot that put Oregon up 76-69. She followed that up with another 3-point shot that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Sabally finished the game with 25 points and six rebounds, and she helped take away any momentum that Team USA was looking to generate in the fourth quarter.
“Being able to shoot the ball from that range has such value,” Team USA head coach Cheryl Reeve said of Sabally. “She believes that she belongs, and so I’ve seen her grow. Satou is really special.”
Oregon relied on its stars as Ionescu finished with 30 points, seven assists and four rebounds, along with Hebard’s 18 points and 11 rebounds.
Nnemkadi Ogwumike muscled her way to 19 points as a dominant presence down low; she also added 14 rebounds.
Oregon, as its game against Team USA was an exhibition, will open its season against Northwestern on Monday.
“This is really kind of a memorable night. Great crowd, man they were loud, and that’s really almost about as good as it can get in basketball,” Graves said, “And all that being said, were 0-0.”
Follow Gabriel on Twitter @gabe_ornelas
