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Today, the Oregon women’s basketball did not play to their potential, and they paid the price with a first round loss to a lesser seed.
Belmont shoots threes. Just look at their stats - the Bruins shoot threes, and they do a great job of it. The Ducks looked like this was some sort of revelation, and it bit them in the orifice of your choice, because Belmont torched Oregon for 12 threes on 33% shooting. There’s the game. Oregon was not able to take their height and paint advantage to win this game.
The Ducks appeared as if they did not understand that the Belmont Bruins were very good at threes, and that was evident from the first period on. Oregon started cold - again - and paid the price for lagging as they did.
The Ducks did not appear to take advantage of the height advantage that they had on Belmont, and - in spite of having talls in the game - did not press the paint as they should have. A fast, plucky, Bruins team appeared to have confused the Oregon Ducks.
The Bruins may have had the March Madness game of their life, lead by 22 point off guard Tuti Jones. Jones shot 8-11 off the field, and all four of her three pointers; sending the Ducks home in the process. Destinee Wells alson torched Oregon for 16 points, followed by senior Conley Chin for 10.
Nyara Sabally did everything she could here, with 31 points on the game, and Te Hina Paopao added 18 points. Endiya Rogers mysteriously only contributed six points and was hardly a factor in this game. The bigs of Sabally-Prince-Watson did not have the impact that Oregon would have liked, and that’s why they are going home after the first round.
We know that Sedona Prince will be back next year. Will Nyara Sabally also be back? Should she come back? This will be an ATQ discussion into the next season.