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As the Oregon Women’s Basketball team enter PAC-12 play, Addicted to Quack would like to take a deeper look at the phenomenal career of Sabrina Ionescu.
There are many highlights and achievements one could focus on, to name a few:
- ESPNW Freshman of the Year
- Pac-12 Freshman of the Year
- Two Time All-Pac-12
- Pac-12 all-Tournament Team
- Nancy Lieberman Award Winner (National Point Guard of the Year)
- Pac-12 Player of the Year
- Pac-12 Tournament MVP
- Wooden Award finalist (National player of the year)
- Associated Press first team All-American
- Bleacher Report’s “50 Most Influential People in Sports Culture”
But this piece will focus on Ionescu’s 14 career triple-doubles, an NCAA record for both men’s and women’s basketball, and in doing so will track the momentum of the Oregon Women’s Basketball team as a whole.
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FRESHMAN SEASON
1. San Jose State - Ionescu scored her first triple-double against the Spartans, joining Stefanie Kasperski and Bev Smith in the exclusive Duck Triple-Double Club. (11/27/16)
11 POINTS - 11 ASSISTS - 12 REBOUNDS
2. Clemson - The No. 25 Ducks played their first game as a ranked team since 2003, and defeated the Tigers 87-59 thanks in large part to Ionescu. (12/12/16)
23 POINTS - 10 ASSISTS - 12 REBOUNDS
3. Utah - Oregon was struggling in conference play and entered this contest with a 3-4 record, losing their first three PAC-12 matchups in a row. Ionescu’s high-level of play against the Utes not only gave the Ducks a much needed conference victory, but also gave the fans a glimpse at what this team would become in the future. (1/22/17)
14 POINTS - 13 ASSISTS - 10 REBOUNDS
4. #15 UCLA - Behind the excellent performances of Lexi Bando, Ruthy Hebard, and Sabrina Ionescu, the Ducks beat their first top-15 team in a decade. This game showed Duck fans the potential of both Ionescu and this team; Despite losing their last three games of the regular season, the Ducks were able to earn a tournament bid by making it to the semi-final of the PAC-12 Tourney, and once the Oregon women made it to the Dance, they took part in a Cinderella run that would end against the mighty UCONN in the Elite Eight.
The UCLA victory would be Ionescu’s final triple-double of the season and the most by any freshman in NCAA single-season history. (2/10/17)
11 POINTS - 10 ASSISTS - 10 REBOUNDS
SOPHOMORE SEASON
5. Drake - Ionescu scored what was at the time a career high 29 points and the Ducks led wire-to-wire against a decent Drake team. After last year’s team ended in a surprising Elite Eight appearance, Oregon had some pre-season buzz, much of which was centered around their talented sophomore. (11/12/17)
29 POINTS - 11 ASSISTS - 10 REBOUUNDS
6. #19 Texas A&M - The Ducks gained a lot of attention with their 83-68 win over the Aggies at College Station. Losses against Mississippi State and Louisville kept the Ducks from being undefeated in non-conference play, but beating Texas A&M in Texas and then again in Oregon helped give the Ducks the resume they needed to eventually earn a 2-seed in the Big Dance. (11/16/17)
16 POINTS - 11 ASSISTS - 10 REBOUNDS
7. Ole Miss - Oregon Women’s Basketball bounced back from their 90-79 loss to Mississippi State by destroying Ole Miss, 90-46. Ionescu scored her seventh career triple-double which gave her the most in PAC-12 Women’s Basketball history over Stanford’s Nicole Powell. (12/17/17)
21 POINTS - 14 ASSISTS - 11 REBOUNDS
8. Washington - The game against Washington turned out to be a historic one for two reasons: Coach Kelly Graves earned his 500th career win and Sabrina Ionescu broke the NCAA Women’s Basketball record for career triple-doubles. Ionescu and Graves share an equal amount of credit in building up this program, and you get the feeling that only a national championship will satisfy their high expectations. (12/31/17)
24 POINTS - 10 ASSISTS - 14 REBOUNDS
9. Utah - Oregon once again beat a PAC-12 opponent and Ionescu once again dominated. (1/28/18)
19 POINTS - 13 ASSISTS - 10 REBOUNDS
10. Seattle U - In the first round of the tournament, the 2-seed Oregon Ducks were matched up against the 15-seed Seattle University Redhawks in Eugene. It was only the 11th triple-double in NCAA Tournament history but the sixth for Ionescu in the ‘18-19 season. Ionescu tied Danielle Carson’s single-season triple-double record but wasn’t able to surpass her long-standing record from 1986.
The Ducks once again ended their tourney run in the Elite Eight. (3/16/18)
19 POINTS - 11 ASSISTS - 10 REBOUNDS
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JUNIOR SEASON
11. Alaska Fairbanks - The first game of the season took place in Hebard’s hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska. A large crowd, or at least large for Fairbanks, arrived to cheer on Hebard, but all fans were rewarded with an early-season spectacle from Ionescu. (11/6/18)
18 POINTS - 12 ASSISTS - 11 REBOUNDS
12. Buffalo - In what Ionescu called “the worst triple-double I’ve ever had,” the Ducks proved that they were much more than a single star player (Oregon’s four other starters all earned more than 15 points apiece.) She committed seven of the Ducks’ 19 turnovers and was 1-of-7 from the floor, but still wound up with a triple-double and a win. (11/18/18)
12 POINTS - 10 ASSISTS - 10 REBOUNDS
13. Air Force - Then, she got the big one.
Against Washington, last season, Ionescu broke the women’s record. This time, with her thirteenth triple-double, she surpassed Kyle Collinsworth and became the all-time triple-double leader for both men’s and women’s basketball. The performance itself seemed strangely ho-hum, but the incredible becoming common has been a trait of Ionescu at Oregon. (12/20/18)
17 POINTS - 13 ASSISTS - 11 REBOUNDS
A look at Sabrina Ionescu's NCAA record 13th career triple-double. #GoDucks pic.twitter.com/K2zezfZYAB
— Oregon Women’s Basketball (@OregonWBB) December 20, 2018
14. UC Irvine - How does Sabrina celebrate becoming a triple-double legend? By getting another triple-double the very next day, of course! Against UC Irvine, Ionescu showed why she could be the best player in the country: her resilience and consistent high-level of play assure that she will be a major factor in every game. (12/21/18)
13 POINTS - 14 ASSISTS - 10 REBOUNDS