In Oregon’s women’s basketball game against Western Oregon on Sunday, there was one major problem: The Wolves couldn’t see the basket over the Ducks, let alone shoot the ball.
With a 5-foot-4-inch starting point guard and its tallest player equal to the average height of Oregon’s starters, the Ducks easily trampled Western Oregon, 87-29, in front of 3,150 fans at McArthur Court.
“It was a good picture of how good we can be,” forward Cathrine Kraayeveld said. “I think we can be even better than that. It just showed how well we ran through our offense.”
The offense was the easy part. Oregon had 39 points in the first half, and that would have held it the entire game.
Instead, the Ducks continued to pound away on offense every time they had possession of the ball — and even when they didn’t. Oregon had 15 steals, including three clean picks by point guard Corrie Mizusawa that she ran the length of the court for uncontested layups. Mizusawa also added 11 assists — her second time in as many games with double-digit assists.
But the game wasn’t for showboating their offense prowess, the Ducks said. They had keys to work on during the game.
“The three things that were looked at were certainly defensively keeping people in front of us, really jumping to the ball and finishing plays, rebounding,” head coach Bev Smith said. “We accomplished those better in the second half.”
In the second half, the Ducks grabbed 25 rebounds — including 17 defensively, many of which were collected to the sound of the shot clock buzzer.
Three times in the first half, Western Oregon turned the ball over on a shot clock violation. Five consecutive sets in the second, and more sporadically throughout the half, saw shots go up as the clock ticked to zero and the buzzer began to sound — most of the attempts ending off-target in the hands of a Duck.
“We were great on defense,” center Andrea Bills said. “We still have a lot of stuff to work on, but that just shows how hard we were playing on the defensive end to get so many shotclock violations.”
Although it looked like an easy win, the Ducks were still happy to be playing against someone else.
“It’s definitely helping us,” Mizusawa said. “We had a couple main points that we wanted to focus on to get ready to play next week in our tournament. Especially defensively, getting back in transition defense because that’s one thing that killed us on Wednesday.”
The Wolves had 10 three-point attempts in the game, sinking three of them.
Offensively for Oregon, forward Carolyn Ganes led the charge with 22 points off the bench. Starters Kraayeveld and Bills each added 17, with nine of the former’s points coming from three-point range.
“No matter how easy it was, we still had to go in there and fight for floor position,” Bills said. “We’ve got to learn to be stronger and take things from this game.”
Everyone on the bench who was suited up for the game saw at least 10 minutes on the court and contributed at least two points. Even freshman guard Cicely Oaks, who did not play in Wednesday’s game against Strakonice, played the final 10 minutes and 39 seconds of the game. Oaks made a three-pointer, grabbed three defensive rebounds and grabbed one steal while she was on the floor.
The Ducks, as a unit, made the point that it wasn’t about making it as big of a win as possible. Instead, it was about working on the little things.
“We respect the game and what the game demands,” Smith said. “It’s not who’s in front of you, it’s not the scoreboard, it’s certainly what we have to do to get better.
“Who we are is Oregon. Oregon will always play defense, Oregon will always get back in transition and Oregon will limit second chance opportunities and that’s what you play to — your potential and not just what the scoreboard says.”
The Ducks have the week for practice before hosting the Women’s Sports Foundation Classic on Saturday and Sunday.