With perennial Pacific-10 Conference cellar dweller California coming to McArthur Court for a 7 p.m. contest tonight, the Oregon women’s basketball team is looking to get better, real fast.
Supplanted in ninth place after two weeks of conference play, the Ducks (5-8 overall, 1-3 Pac-10) look to the Golden Bears as a means to right the ship that has teetered violently since the loss of junior Cathrine Kraayeveld, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder.
“I think we just need to play our game, just calm down and play some solid defense,” freshman Carolyn Ganes said. “Get on the boards. The boards will be a big thing for us.”
Since the announcement Dec. 26 that Kraayeveld would be sidelined, the Ducks have struggled mightily. Oregon has averaged just 68.8 points per game during Pac-10 play while allowing opponents 85 per contest. To make matters worse, the Ducks have been outrebounded on average 41-30.
But while Ganes speaks volumes about Oregon’s need to improve its rebound, there is a consensus that if the Ducks can play at the top of their game, there is no need to worry about statistical categories.
With a nine-player roster, that task is becoming increasingly difficult with every game.
“The focus right now is our mental aggressiveness and our physical aggressiveness which follows into mental readiness and going from there,” head coach Bev Smith said. “This team is ready and focused when it is mentally aggressive and not taking little timeouts, which allows critical and mental lapses to occur, which we cannot give to Pac-10 schools.”
The Ducks have shown hints of quality play since conference play began, especially in a 79-73 victory over USC in Week 1. However, blowout losses to UCLA and Arizona have diminished Oregon’s aggressiveness. Only against Arizona State have the Ducks shown progress in a loss.
“It’s just basically what we’ve been doing in practice the last couple of days,” sophomore Brandi Davis said when asked about what Oregon needs to do to win. “Usually, we like to pick and choose our games. We’ve been on and off with our wins and stuff like that. It’s just going to take what we’ve been doing in practice — going hard and giving it our all.”
Davis said Oregon has had a tough time adjusting to the shortened bench. The Ducks, in their losses, have been out-of-sync, a possible attribution for the blowout losses. But when Oregon is able to gel together as a team, it can be an offensive powerhouse.
“We have to be ready to look after the basketball to make sure we are giving Cal our best effort, our best execution and our best defense,” Smith said. “If we do that it, it doesn’t matter who we play. We have a pretty good chance of winning the ball game.”
Yet, California (5-6, 1-1) will not be the pushover it once was. After suffering a similar loss to Arizona as Oregon, the Golden Bears upset Arizona State, 72-67.
The win marked a major step for the program, one that has not seen a winning record in Pac-10 play since going 10-8 during the 1992-93 season.
The Ducks have owned California of late, defeating the Golden Bears 17 of the last 18 times. The only blemish came when Cal upset Oregon, 68-57, in Berkeley in 2001.
Last season’s 65-53 Oregon win at Haas Pavilion may have been an indicator of things to come. The Bears trailed by just one with 3:34 to play in the game, and had it not been for 27 turnovers, easily could have come out on top.
Smith is well aware of Cal’s resurgence.
“They would love to do nothing else but feel us make even worse,” she said. “Cal is playing very well, and history has nothing to do with this upcoming game.”