Shooting 3-19 from deep could doom a team.
For Minnesota, domination in the paint wiped that slate clean, Oregon women’s basketball couldn’t overcome the handicap, and the Ducks dropped their fourth-straight game on Wednesday night. Oregon (14-7, 2-6 Big Ten) scored 18 fourth-quarter points while giving up 21 after trailing by two at the quarter break. The Golden Gophers (13-6, 4-4 Big Ten) outscored the Ducks 46-16 in the paint by the buzzer.
“We dug ourselves too big a hole,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves said. “We’ve done this before.”
Oregon raced out of the gate. The Ducks held the Golden Gophers to multiple long possessions off the tip and flashed on the other side of the court. With three minutes gone, Katie Fiso (10 points) took a pass from under the basket and dispatched it quickly to Sofia Bell. The guard missed her 3-point try, but Ehis Etute snagged the rebound and dished to Mia Jacobs, who drained the deep shot.
Where the Ducks struggled, though, was in the paint. Etute (12 rebounds) is their go-to option to handle a player under the basket, but back-to-back scores near the start of the second quarter came from Oregon players succumbing to bigger or smarter bodies inside the arc as Jacobs walked to midcourt.
Fillipa Tilliander (six rebounds) spelled Etute near the five-minute mark in the half, and she paid off the chance with a tough defensive rebound against Golden Gophers starting center Sophie Hart and an offensive board on the next possession.
“She’s spectacular,” Graves said of Tilliander. “She’s like a college pro, you know…first half, she had five rebounds in three minutes. She’s just pretty solid, but I thought in the end that kid just buried her a couple of times.”
Cain brought the Ducks level at 21 with a corner 3-point make late in the shot clock out of the under-five media timeout, and Bell bagged another after the Golden Gophers snagged two points on a Hart layup. Oregon finished the first half shooting 8-30 from the floor and 3-12 from deep, but Minnesota wasn’t doing any better.
The Golden Gophers finished the first half just 1-12 from beyond the arc, and Oregon wasn’t closing out with a vengeance. Their three starting guards combined to shoot 0-8 from deep, including multiple relatively open misses.
Etute started the second half and gave up a basket to Hart (14 points) in the paint immediately, but rebounded with one of her own on the other end. Starting guard Ari Long drained a 3-pointer for her first points of the night, and the Ducks snapped a two-minute scoring drought around the six-minute mark in the quarter with a Etute and-1 in the paint.
Three-point anemia continued to plague Minnesota, though, which missed its first two deep shots of the half before the under-five media timeout in the third quarter with open opportunities. Oregon, meanwhile, drew within a point with a Cain 3-point make off an Etute assist into that timeout and took the lead on the other side.
Inefficiency evened out, and Minnesota led the Ducks by a basket at the start of the fourth quarter. The Ducks got Fiso a rest near the end of the period, but also went silent from the floor for almost four minutes. The guard checked back in, but Oregon watched anyway as Hart spun around Tilliander and helped the lead balloon to 10 points with 7:32 left.
Fiso, though, played just five fourth-quarter minutes.
“At that point, we don’t need twos,” Graves said. “We don’t need tough twos, and we just felt that part of it is the coach trying to make a point, as well. In that position, we have to create, you know, some time for others. I love Katie — love her — and she’s a great competitor, but she’s one of those that just wants to take it on her shoulders and we’re better when we can move the bubble and we space this thing out.”
Sofia Bell scored the Ducks’ second basket of the fourth quarter with 3:48 left. It wasn’t close to enough. That 3-pointer cut the deficit to nine points, and quick pressure from Long netted a stolen-inbound basket afterward. Oregon ramping up full-court pressure near the two-minute mark and a flagrant foul against Amaya Battle (20 points) that became a Ducks turnover.
“I think pressing them helped a little bit, we got scrappy and things of that nature,” Long said. “I think (it’s) coming together as a team, putting our foot down and not letting it continue going down that poor spiral and trying to turn the page to get it back.”
Long drew Oregon within five points off another inbound turnover and a 3-point make near the minute mark. Minnesota salted away the next 73 seconds and entered the bonus with 60 to go. Jacobs made another 3-pointer with 54 seconds to pull Oregon within a score, but the Ducks missed back-to-back layups off another Minnesota turnover and chased a loose ball to no avail. Hart dropped in an open layup with 9.1 to go, and extended the lead to two possessions. Fiso missed a 3-point try and didn’t give her team a shot to get the ball back.
“We just can’t let these opportunities pass,” Graves said. “It’s a good team, but that’s an opportunity lost, and we can’t keep losing them without starting to get some of these.”
Oregon’s next chance to snap a now four-game losing streak will come against Penn State on Saturday at Matthew Knight Arena.