Oregon women’s basketball looked unstoppable.
The team had won 19 games in a row and racked up both Pac-12 regular-season and tournament titles. It was led by a truly transcendent superstar in Sabrina Ionescu, two other graduating seniors in Minyon Moore and Ruthy Hebard, and a superstar junior who chose to go pro in Satou Sabally.
Everything was coming together for a run at the program’s first national championship ever. And now, just like that, it’s gone, and it’s not coming back.
“We’re the best team,” head coach Kelly Graves said just last week. “I don’t mind saying that. We just are.”
He was right. When everyone was playing well, there wasn’t a team on the planet that could’ve beaten them. Beyond that, too, this team had begun to bear the torch for something much larger. They were becoming the most visible team in women’s athletics, selling out arenas every night and showing the world what women’s athletics mean to so many people.
“Just honored and humbled to be a part of something bigger than myself,” Ionescu said at the Pac-12 Tournament. “Playing for these people around me that I love…excited to see how our team is really changing society and society’s view on women in sports.”
To be clear, that doesn’t change. Nothing that this team accomplished for women in sports is erased.
But Ionescu’s greatness was supposed to be showcased in front of the world one last time in an Oregon jersey. People who had been hearing about her from all over the country were going to get their chance to see her on the biggest stage against the best teams. Now, that chance will never come. That’s truly a shame, and fandom has nothing to do with it.
The people of Eugene were robbed of this moment, too. The community had rallied around this team like no other basketball team to ever play in this small city. The support was unprecedented, and four years of building this program from the ground up was supposed to culminate in one final run in March. For a school that hasn’t won a men’s or women’s basketball national championship since 1939, this year was the best chance to change that. Everyone felt it. It was supposed to be a celebration of how far they’ve come.
“The house that we built” is what Ionescu called Matthew Knight Arena. The grand opening for the world to see was coming, and now it’s not.
Public health comes before sports. That’s not debatable, and the decision to not hold the NCAA Tournament was the right one. But sports mean so much to so many people. This sport, and this team in particular, meant even more. To Eugene, to the University of Oregon, to women’s athletics.
Now, all that’s left are what-ifs. And that’s why it’s so heartbreaking.
