Oregon Ducks Women’s Basketball Comes From Behind To Defeat Iowa, 50-49

Oregon women’s basketball continues to be surprising, and yesterday’s match against the Iowa Hawkeyes is a case in point. Consider that the Ducks started the game as badly as they possibly could have, and did not score for the first six minutes of the game.

After being down 11-0, Oregon began scoring, but that 10-point gap remained even until halftime with the score 32-22.

The Ducks started slow. They weren’t sharp; they looked like they just had gotten out of bed. They didn’t take great shots, and when they got some good looks the ball didn’t sink. The Ducks had ball control issues and were being killed on the boards. To make matters worse, the Hawkeyes were making the shots that Oregon was not making.

It was easy to think that the game was a foregone conclusion going into the second half. After all, how many times last season did we see the women fold over? All the signs were there, and we had heard this tune before.

Perhaps so, but these Ducks are different, and they proved it in the second half. A renewed Oregon defensive effort accompanied the Ducks actually making some of those shots that they missed in the first half, and they slowly crept back into the game.

In the fourth quarter, Oregon moved the ball well and only had one turnover. They held Iowa to 23% shooting for the quarter.

The Ducks were stifling, and they caused Iowa to go scoreless for over half of the 4th quarter. A home crowd that was with the Ducks all the way was really into this game, and when Oregon took the lead, 44-41 with 5:59 to go, the crowd of 7,300 made MKA sound like there were twice that many people there.

Iowa still seemed capable of scoring at any time, and so it was not a surprise to see them inch back at the Oregon lead, making the game about as suspenseful as any we have watched in recent memory.

A jumper by Nani Falatea gave Oregon a 3-point lead with 1:00 to go. The Hawkeyes responded with a bucket to pull with one with 0:42 to go. The Ducks then played some of their best defense of the season, shut Iowa down, and went into the locker room with the 50-49 win.

Iowa ended the game shooting 37% (31.6% on threes), and had 40 rebounds and 19 turnovers. Sydney Affolter had a double-double with 10 points and 15 rebounds. Addison O’Grady also contributed 10 points.

Oregon shot 40% for the game. A big key was that they went 5-15 from beyond the arc, shooting 33% instead of the 15-21% that we’ve seen. They need that, because Oregon only went to the FT line once the entire game, for one shot (made by Elisa Mevius). The Ducks only committed four of their 10 turnovers in the send half – a second half that was about as well-played as we’ve seen all year, against an Iowa team that can really ratchet up the score.

Phillipina Kyei stepped up in the second half, where she scored 8 of her game-leading 12 points. Deja Kelly scored 10 points. Sophia Bell added six important points, as she only shot the long ball and went 2-3 from beyond the arc.

Here is what the ladies had to say after the game:

Coach Kelly Graves had this to add:

Oregon women’s basketball is now 14-5, and their 5-3 conference record puts them in 8th place in the B1G. They will put their 12-1 home advantage to the test when they host Indiana (12-6, 4-3 Big-10/T-9th) on Friday at 6:00 pm PT.