Visiting Santa Clara dominates Oregon
Suffering its first loss of the 2023 season, the Oregon women's basketball team fell to Santa Clara Saturday afternoon at Matthew Knight Arena, 89-50.
The Broncos put on a shooting performance for the ages against the Ducks, making 12-of-15 shots from deep in the first half alone to build a 55-30 lead.
The 31 points given up by the Ducks in the first quarter are the most Oregon has ever given up in a single frame as a program.
Playing from behind for the rest of the game, the Ducks couldn't generate enough offense to get back into it and suffered one of their worst defeats in the Kelly Graves era.
“Tonight, and against UConn in the Elite Eight in 2017,” Graves said of the worst losses he can remember.
“Hats off to Santa Clara, they played great, they earned it, they deserved it. I've never seen a team shoot like that, certainly against us, before. But it was more than the shooting. We didn't get to the line – we've been averaging about 25 free throws a night and we got there four times tonight. We continue our poor shooting from 3. I think they took all the made 3s tonight. They didn't leave any for us.”
The Broncos finished shooting 16of-28 from 3-point land, compared to the Ducks' 5-of-21 from distance.
Chance Gray led Oregon with 11 points and Sofia Bell scored 10, but Oregon shot 35% from the field and lost the rebounding battle to an undersized team, 40-30.
“We knew they were going to pick and pop all night long and play five guards,” Graves said.
“We are who we are. We've got to make sure that we defend that and make our size a strength at the other end. And we didn't. We got nothing around the rim, everything was contested. We weren't on balance. We didn't play well and we didn't coach well. There's not a lot to it. This is a game we're going to flush down the toilet and hopefully learn from. We have to move on.”
The Ducks hit the road for their next matchup against Nevada on Tuesday in Reno.