First, it was the Ducks on fire. Then, Purdue found its legs too late to make a comeback. And in between, it was a legitimate postseason game with plenty of energy, fouls and competitiveness, one that Ducks fans were never really worried about their team losing.

With a Purdue-leaning crowd in Indianapolis, the 11-seeded Ducks (21-11) beat the 14-seed Boilermakers (13-17) 82-64, and can still feel that there’s room to grow before a matchup Thursday with a very good Maryland team.

“I give Purdue a lot of credit for making that second half interesting,” head coach Kelly Graves said. “We played a great first half obviously, only one turnover, we shot the ball well, and we distributed it so to speak. It was one of our better halves, but we’re still a relatively young team, and we’ve got to learn how to close things out when we’ve got them down. We kind of putzed around a little bit in that second and they tightened it up a little bit.”

Oregon rallied out to a 47-24 lead at halftime, and although the Boilermakers stormed back, outscoring Oregon 25-17 in the third quarter, the game was never really in danger of swinging Purdue’s way.

​”That’s where our immaturity comes into play. I wish we could have come out the first five minutes of the second half and kind of put our foot down and build on the lead we had, so that we could give them some rest,” he explained. “If we hope to win this thing, it’s a five-game gauntlet, for crying out loud. Any minutes you can give your kids on the bench, you take them. But again, credit Purdue, they really battled and fought back.”
​
Led by Katie Fiso’s 20 points — 13 of which came in the second half — Oregon notched its first Big Ten Tournament win as a member of the conference. Ehis Etute tallied 16 points and 12 rebounds in just 20 minutes. A healthy Mia Jacobs had 14 points and nine rebounds of her own.

“Having [Jacobs] today, she’s just another threat on the court that the defense has to scout on,” Fiso said. “So many players, so many threats, Ehis, Mia, Sofia, Ari, Sarah. All these people have all these threats, and I think that’s what makes our team so versatile and so dangerous when we tap into those threats.”
​
Oregon used its spacing advantage to open up its interior scoring. Although the Ducks finished just 5-16 from beyond the arc, Oregon shot a whopping 29 free throws and converted 27 from the charity stripe.
​
Fiso facilitated everything for the Ducks, especially in her impressive second half, but most importantly, she turned the ball over just one time. Along with its big three of Fiso, Jacobs and Etute, Astera Tuhina and Amina Muhammad added nine and six points of their own off the bench.
​
Oregon’s matchup tomorrow will be much more difficult. However, the Ducks did win 68-61 on Jan. 31 over Maryland who is currently ranked 14th nationally.
​
“We’re not playing with house money,” Graves said. “We’re here to win games and do the best we can. We’re just going to go out and let her rip tomorrow. That’s all we can do.”
​
​The Ducks face the No. 6 seeded Terrapins on Thursday at approximately 6 p.m.