Ducks Women’s Basketball Gets Taken For a Run, Loses 99-77

The Oregon Ducks were soundly beaten today by the #9 Washington Huskies 99-77 in Women’s basketball action today at Matt Court. Ruthie Hebard led the way for Oregon with 25 points and 5 rebounds while showing excellent efficiency from the floor. Unfortunately she could not counter the play of Kelsey Plum, who exploded for 44 points with a James Harden-esque 15 free throw attempts.

It was a fairly even game through the first quarter, with Hebard scoring 12 points for Oregon. Washington was paced with fairly even scoring by Plum, Chantel Osahor (18 points and 12 rebounds for the game,) and Heather Corral (19 points on 7-7 shooting.) The Ducks began the second quarter trailing 25-21, and that’s where things started to go horribly wrong.

Washington gradually increased their lead throughout the second quarter, pushing it above 10 for the first time with 4:02 remaining. Plum put in a lot of work from the charity stripe in the quarter, scoring 8 points from the free throw line. Justine Hall scored 6 in the quarter for Oregon and finished the game with 13 points on 50% from the floor.

In the third quarter Oregon briefly managed to bring the score to within 9 after consecutive baskets from Mallory McGwire, Hebard, and Morgan Yaeger. But that would be the last time the score was within single digits on the night, as the end of the third saw Oregon facing a 17 point deficit, 72-66.

Plum scored 14 in the fourth quarter to ice the game, as Oregon could rarely manage to get the deficit under 20 points, and Washington ended up walking away with a 22 point victory 99-77.

This was a game that featured a lot of good shooting, with Oregon going 55% from the floor and 60% from 3 and Washington going 58% from the floor and 47% from 3. Oregon was -7 in turnover margin and committed 7 more personal fouls, which was certainly not how Coach Kelley Graves and the team wanted to play. Next up for the Ducks is Washington State on Sunday at 2 pm at Matthew Knight Arena.