Going on the road for a young basketball team is never an easy thing to do.
Now factor in you’re the No. 8 ranked Oregon Ducks and everyone in the conference wants to knock you off.
Despite that adversity and not playing their best ball against Washington or WSU, the Ducks came out on top in both contests.
It’s nice to have a dominate post player and a senior sharpshooter who can hit a big shot when needed also.
Oregon went to the Palouse Monday morning and it took awhile for the Ducks to get on track, but eventually came away with a 69-65 win to hand the Cougars their first loss of the season.
The Ducks are now 7-0, 5-0 in league, and winners of 26 straight games, dating back to last season.
Nyara Sabally, who is quickly becoming an unstoppable force in the middle, scored 19 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. Erin Boley added 18 points, including a three-pointer from the corner to give Oregon a 68-64 lead with under 30 seconds to go.
Jaz Shelley poured in 11 as she went 3-of-4 from long range all in the second half when Oregon desperately needed points from the perimeter.
Point guard Charlisse Legar-Walker scored 20 points and almost single-handedly pulled off the upset of the No. 8 team in the country.
WSU came into this game riding high after its upset win over Oregon State less than 48 hours earlier and their play showed why they knocked off the nationally-ranked Beavers.
The Cougars led for the vast majority of the game.
The Ducks found themselves down nine at 41-32 with 8:12 on the clock in the third quarter. Oregon was uncharacteristically turning the ball over at a high clip, which produced the WSU lead.
Oregon averages almost 12 turnovers a game and it had that many in the first half.
But once the Cougars were up by nine points, this was when Oregon decided to run the offense through Sabally nearly every time down the floor.
Sabally took advantage of her 6-5 frame and dominated the smaller Cougar defenders. For a while, coach Kelly Graves had 6-7 Sedona Prince on the floor with Sabally for that Twin Tower strategy. That worked on the defensive end also making it extremely difficult for WSU to generate points in the paint.
Slowly but surely, Oregon whittled away at the lead and finally pulled ahead briefly at 49-48 when Shelley made a three-pointer with 49 seconds remaining in the quarter.
To the Cougars’ credit, they didn’t crawl away and accept defeat. They pulled ahead 50-49 at the end of the third, setting up a fourth quarter that went back and forth.
Washington State was up 62-60 with 1:30 remaining when Shelley banked in a three-pointer as the shot clock was running out to give the Ducks a slim one-point advantage.
POST GAME; ERIN BOLEY DISCUSSES NARROW WIN OVER WSU
After a Cougar turnover, the Ducks set up a play and found Boley in the corner for a huge three with just 51 seconds left to make it a two-possession game. Krystal Leger-Walker answered with a three of her own with 26 seconds left.
Boley hit one-of-two from the line, so with 13 seconds left the Cougars had the ball down 67-65 with a chance to either win with a three or send the game into overtime.
They worked the ball around and eventually found Ula Motuga in the corner. Sabally ran at her and that was enough to disrupt Motuga’s shot attempt. Oregon got the rebound and was fouled with less than a second left. Maddie Scherr made both free throws and the game was over.
Although the score might not show it, two days before, Oregon had its hands full with a pesky Husky team. The Ducks came out on top 73-49, but they would be the first to admit they didn’t exactly play their best game.
Oregon shot just 42 percent from the floor on 28-of-67 shooting. Washington was able to sloppy the game up a bit, but the Ducks were ale to make plays when they needed to.
It was the coming-out party for freshman Sydney Parrish, who led the team with 18 points on 4-of-8 from long range. Sabally added 13 points and seven boards with Te-Hina Paopao scoring 12.
Oregon will have the rest of 2020 off before resuming action Jan. 1 with a home date with USC. The schedule will get significantly tougher after that with No. 11 UCLA coming to Matthew Knight Arena Jan. 3 before the Ducks have to travel to No. 1 Stanford the following week.
KELLY GRAVES TALKS ABOUT THE NARROW WIN AT WSU