Five years have passed since Oregon won the 2002 Women’s National Invitation Tournament Title. Memories have faded. Details washed away as years, days, hours pass the team members by.
The sensation of a WNIT title pales next to a berth in the NCAA Tournament, yet the reward of a team coming together to win a national championship is etched into the memories of members of Bev Smith’s first year as head coach at Oregon.
“In the end when you can say you’re No. 1 of a tournament, regardless of whether it’s 64 teams or 32, you’ve accomplished something huge, especially with such a young team,” said Shaquala Williams, then Oregon’s leading scorer.
The Emerald reached out to five players from the 2001-02 team to look back and provide perspective as Oregon prepares for its first WNIT Saturday night against the winner of San Diego and UC-Santa Barbara. Williams, Jamie Craighead, Andrea Bills, Kedzie Gunderson and Edniesha Curry have remained close to the game either in college or professional levels.
Coming from all directions
The 2001-02 season was dominated by transition. Oregon had a new coach in Smith, hired to replace Jody Runge, who was fired the previous spring amid player complaints about her coaching methods and communication skills.
Six new freshman joined a veteran core of Williams, Craighead, Alyssa Fredrick, Ndidi Unaka and Kourtney Shreve. Cathrine Kraayeveld, who played sparingly as a freshman, entered her sophomore season. Curry, a senior guard recruited by Runge, transferred to Oregon following three years at Cal State Northridge.
“Edniesha was a great leader, very outspoken, motivating and she knew her role our team and did what she needed to do,” Bills said. “She was older and had experience, so I believe a lot of us younger players followed her lead.”
Williams, feeling renewed from a year off with a torn ACL, played with the USA Women’s World University Games Team that summer.
Oregon took until midseason to create a cohesive mix. They stood 12-11 in early February. Then freshmen started to emerge with more experience. The seniors, more accustomed to the new coach and new offense, started to play better.
“When it came down to it, we all knew that we had a really good, talented squad, young and old veterans,” Curry said. “We wanted to win and that’s one thing that Oregon’s always had is a tradition of winning and that’s what the community and that’s what players expect when you put on a Duck uniform.”
“It was a really major learning experience for me as a freshman,” Gunderson said. “That whole year was a lot of building. It was having a new coach – no one knew her. Everyone was trying to establish themselves.”
The Pac-10 implemented the first conference tournament in 2001-02 and held it in venerable McArthur Court. Oregon, winners of six of its last nine games, felt confident of making a deep surge and possibly earning the automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.
Oregon won against Washington State, 85-67, overwhelmed rival Washington 78-64, and succumbed to Arizona State 64-58 in the semifinal. The Sun Devils ended up with the conference title, winners over Stanford, but Oregon had momentum and looked toward the postseason.
The Ducks had 17 wins, a 10-8 record in the Pacific-10 Conference and thought a resume consisting of eight consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances under Runge might be enough to punch their ticket to March Madness.
“We were definitely on the bubble,” Craighead said. “We thought there was still a chance – an outside chance, but a chance nonetheless.”
Selection Sunday arrived and ended Oregon’s Tournament dreams. Upperclassmen accustomed to March Madness, now had to consider the WNIT, a postseason tournament – just not the one they wanted.
“The top 64 teams go to the NCAA Tournament. We had been raised and taught as players that that’s what you play for,” Craighead said. “It was humbling at first. I think some of us who were from the old regime thought that we didn’t want to go to the WNIT. That was obviously coach Smith’s call and the University. Looking back, I’m glad they made that decision.”
Making it all the way
Oregon’s run started with a first round meeting with St. Mary’s, a California based college, with twins Jerkisha Dosty, who had 23 points, and Jermisha Dosty, who had 18 points and 10 rebounds. Oregon countered with Bills 17 points and Kraayeveld’s 15 as the Ducks only had eight scoreless minutes from a sick Williams in a 72-61 win.
The second round brought Oregon State to McArthur Court for the first time since they visited Eugene Jan. 19 and earned its first win in Ducks territory in nine years.
The game typified the Civil War Rivalry with the result left undecided until the final buzzer. Oregon State’s Juleen Smith had a three-pointer come up short at the buzzer that left Oregon celebrating a 50-48 win courtesy of a game-winning lay-up by Kraayeveld just seconds earlier.
After Oregon State turned the ball over on a shot clock violation with 19 seconds remaining, Curry missed a driving layup. Fredrick snatched the rebound and launched a shot over the basket into Kraayeveld’s arms, who dropped in the layup for the winning margin.
Oregon had to travel to Washington for the third round. Kraayeveld had a game-high 26 points on an efficient 9-of-13 shooting from the field.
Craighead started the game 1-for-9 from three-point range over the first 35 minutes. With 5:18 left in the second half Washington coach June Daugherty was called for a technical foul and Smith had the senior guard shoot the free throws. It was just what Craighead needed. She made four three-pointers in the last 4 1/2 minutes to help Oregon escape with a 77-73 win. Craighead, from Elma, Wash., had 17 points and seven assists.
“Jamie’s a great shooter, but she’s one of those kind of people that she could miss eight shots in a row but you always thought the next one was going in because she was that great of a shooter,” Williams said. “It was kind a roller coaster of emotion, really, just going so up and down and playing a rival.”
The semifinal round welcomed Michigan State to Eugene, and another high-scoring outing by Kraayeveld, who had 16 points on 5-of-12 shooting. Williams put in her best game of the tournament with 21 points, including five three-pointers as Oregon advanced to the championship game with a 65-54 win.
Houston arrived to find a packed McArthur Court – 6,835 strong. Houston brought a talented lineup led by future WNBA players Valerie Muoneke and Chandi Jones.
“We could have all had all-nighters and not went to sleep and still that environment would have given us enough energy to win,” Curry said. “That’s how intense it was.”
Said Gunderson, “You can’t describe it unless you actually experience it. Your adrenaline is just pumping so hard and you’ve got these enormous rupture of sound but you get in that moment and you don’t even hear it. It’s amazing.”
Oregon had to survive a momentary scare when Kraayeveld was hit in the face by an elbow and had to go to the locker room in the first half.
“She ran off the court, blood was everywhere and it was right above her eye so we didn’t know if it was going to swell up enough that she wouldn’t be able to see but she did come back,” Craighead said.
All stitched up, a poised Kraayeveld scored all 15 of her points in the second half. She sparked a 10-2 Oregon run with eight of the Ducks points that erased a 43-35 Houston lead. Houston last led 50-48 with 1:33 left on a free throw by Jones. Craighead let a go-ahead three-pointer fly for a 51-50 lead and later added a free throw with 48 seconds left for a 52-50 advantage.
Houston’s Muoneke knotted the score at 52 on an inside bucket with 32 seconds left.
Craighead missed a three-pointer that glanced off a Houston player and out of bounds. Smith called time-out and set up the final play.
As the final seconds ticked away, Williams looked for an open lane
to the hoop. Cut off by a strong Houston defense, she pulled back, noticed a cutting Kraayeveld and fed the 6-foot-3-inch forward the ball.
Kraayeveld pushed forward, confident she’d either make a layup or be fouled. She dropped the ball in the net for the game-and-WNIT winning field goal.
“Cat made the right read defensively and just slashed through the key, which was something she was very good at – moving without the ball,” Craighead said.
Players ran around screaming. Oregon had won a national championship within McArthur Court’s confines.
At least for one senior, Craighead had to wonder afterwards how Oregon might have done in the NCAA Tournament.
“It was hard because you want to look back and say ‘Well, what if. What if?’ But bottom line, we did an amazing job with the group we had. Did we underachieve? I don’t know that you can say we underachieved because we were so young and we were trying to figure each other out and it just doesn’t happen very often that you can do that all within a matter of the first two months of the season,” she said. “I think the run through the tournament was huge for that team.”
Kraayeveld emerged as a go-to player during the second half of the season and in the WNIT with her two game winners. She averaged 10.2 points for the season, but had five consecutive double-doubles in the WNIT.
“Once she hit her stride, it kind of went the same way for everyone,” Williams said. “When you have a player with her talent and her size that finally kind of starts to see where she fits in, I think it made our team that much better.”
The versatile Kraayeveld could go inside or outside to score points. Kraayeveld’s performances in the WNIT elevated her to go-to player status her last two seasons on the basketball court at Oregon. She sat out the 2003-04 season with a torn ACL.
She returned healthy in 2004-05 and led Oregon to a 21-10 record and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Kraayeveld had 23 points in a first round upset of TCU 58-55, then lost to eventual champion Baylor in the second round, 69-46, despite Kraayeveld’s 15 points.
“What made Cathrine special is you got a 6-foot-3-inch kid who can take you out on the wing, she can shoot the three, she can get to the basket, she can post you up,” Craighead said. “So I think, from a coaching perspective, you know that that kid is always going to be able to play somewhere.”
Heading in separate directions
When the WNIT championship celebration had ended, the offseason began and change followed.
Craighead and Curry graduated. More transition happened when the 2002-03 season began. Smith dismissed Williams from the program four games into the season. Kraayeveld suffered a staph infection in her right knee and missed 13 games. Oregon slipped to a 12-16 finish.
The following three seasons had an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2004-05 sandwiched between two springs without postseason play. Oregon rejoins postseason play this week with its first WNIT appearance since that 2002 team won it all.
“It felt great to win a championship no matter what it was,” Bills said of the WNIT. “Our team really came together during those games. It was a great experience that prepared us for the future.”
Staying close to the game
Williams has played in the WNBA. She was drafted in 2003 and has played with the Los Angeles Sparks. Williams tore her ACL in her left leg after a stint in Turkey last year, and though she was interested in going back, physically, she wasn’t ready and decided to take the year off.
“At this point, I don’t know,” Williams said of her basketball future. “We’ll see what happens. I’ll never shut the door on basketball because I love to play so much but at the same time, it comes to a point where you got to move on and do something else.”
Williams works as video coordinator for the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team.
The San Antonio Silver Stars drafted Kraayeveld in the third round of the 2005 WNBA draft. She appeared in a preseason game, then was cut and caught on with the New York Liberty. She has fit into the playing rotation her two years there, including averages of 26.5 minutes, 8.8 points and 4.6 rebounds a game last season.
Bills was in the Sparks training camp last year, and has been playing basketball in Ashdod, Israel for the past six months. She will be joining the Seattle Storm training camp in hopes of earning a spot on the team headlined by point guard Sue Bird.
Curry sat out the 2006 WNBA season with a torn left ACL she suffered in Europe. She signed with the Sparks and is in Los Angeles now working out and getting ready for the upcoming season.
Gunderson lives in Portland and is a Pro Rider/Tester for a new water sport being launched this year called WakeKite.
Craighead transitioned from playing to coaching, first with three years at Seattle-Pacific, before she returned to Portland this season as an assistant coach at Portland State under head coach Charity Elliott. Craighead has fond memories as one of a collection of players who donned Oregon green and gold for a memorable playoff run through the WNIT playoffs.
“I would die to be able to put on a jersey and play in front of that crowd again,” Craighead said. “They’re amazing fans in Eugene and I think they’re the best in the country.”
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