It was all smiles for the Oregon women’s basketball team as it notched its first win in Pac-12 play. 
“That felt good,” head coach Kelly Graves said. “I’m really proud of our team. We had a really good game tonight.”
The Ducks lost five straight conference games – after winning their first 11 non-conference matchups – before they mauled the Bears 69-59 Sunday at Matt Knight Arena. And it looked so easy.
“I think it was very important to all of us that we don’t let it slip,” senior Lexi Petersen said. “That was definitely a focus to keep the lead and know that Cal is a good team that’ll go on some runs.”
Cal had just a single lead all game – the opening bucket.
Jillian Alleyne stole the show with 25 points and 15 rebounds, her best performance in two weeks time.
“We made that point early, to get the basketball to her,” Graves said after the game. “When she’s on, she’s a special kind of player. She has that focus and intensity offensively.”
Her ninth rebound was her defining moment, perhaps of her Oregon career, when she surpassed former Stanford standout Chiney Ogwumike’s career Pac-12 rebounding record of 1,567.
“It’s pretty amazing, Chiney Ogwumike is an amazing player,” the new record holder said. “I’ve been talking to her and she’s just ‘you got to break my record,’ very supportive. I couldn’t of done it without my teammates. Yeah, they missed some shots, but I’m always going to clean up their rebounds and get it back to them.”
Alleyne now has 1,574 rebounds in her Oregon career… and counting.
“That’s special,” Graves said. “She was born to rebound. She’s got an amazing nose for the ball. Sometimes the rebounds don’t mean as much, but tonight every rebound meant something.”
The Ducks out rebounded the Bears 35-to-29 and kept their turnovers at just eight, six less than their recent loss to Stanford.
Lexi Bando and Petersen supported Alleyne with 16 and 12 points, respectively. Petersen’s buckets finally started to fall in the second half, after going 0-for-8 in the first two periods.
Petersen’s performance solidified her spot in the Oregon record books, too, becoming the 27th player in program history to reach 1,000 career points.
“I’m proud of her, she could have hunched her shoulders and not want the ball,” Graves said of Petersen. “She wanted the ball.”  
Correspondingly Oregon started to put the game out of reach. The Ducks took a 19-point lead in the final minutes of the third quarter, and one they wouldn’t dare relinquish with Friday’s loss to the Cardinal still fresh. But Cal did cut Oregon’s lead to nine.
“It was almost like, here we go again,” Graves said. “They made a couple charges and we answered.”
In five of Oregon’s six conference games, the Ducks led at halftime, and, until Sunday, were winless at the final buzzer.
“I felt like we could have won all the games we’ve played, we can play with people,” Graves said. “This first (win), get that monkey off your back so to speak. And hopefully we can continue to ride that momentum.”
The win puts Oregon at 6-11 (1-5) for the season with its next game in Boulder against Colorado, a team now alone winless in Pac-12 play.
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