Oregon Ducks and Washington State Basketball Recap

It’s tough to win in Pullman, but the Oregon Ducks women’s team did just that in a 67-62 victory over the Washington State Cougars. The Ducks were down 37-26, but they avoided an unlikely loss by turning up the heat in the second-half with 40 points. The Ducks were led by 18 second-half points from star Amanda Johnson, who finished the game with 23 points on 50% shooting. It took some time for Oregon to lead, but Johnson hit a three (4-9) with 4:05 left to play to give them a 58-56 edge.

Every starter on the Washington State Cougars were in double-digits, and this is huge progress for a team that has been criticized for lacking scoring options. In fact, nobody on the Cougars averages double-digits this season. Carly Noyes led the way with a team-high 12 points and nine rebounds, but her five turnovers (the same amount as Johnson) helped add to the team’s ghastly total of 21 mishaps.

Star Jazmine Davis missed all five of her three-point attempts, but she finished with 10 points, 11 rebounds, 8 assists, and 4 steals. However, Davis also committed a whopping 7 turnovers.

Sage Romberg was the only starter to play under 30 minutes for the Cougars, but she was still able to take a team-high 15 shots. Inefficient as usual, Romberg only made three (!) of those shots for a total of just ten points. She even took nine three’s in another performance that hurt her team more than it helped.

While Nia Jackson had just four points on a poor 1-5 shooting night, she did a little bit of everything in the other facets of the game to help out her team. The point guard and team leader dished out 6 assists and corralled 6 boards, and she was also responsible for 4 steals.

The Oregon Ducks averaged .91 points per possession, whereas the trigger-happy Washington State Cougars managed to net just .81 points per play. They had just two foul shots compared to 15 free throws from the Ducks, and their constant inability to protect the basketball overshadowed a whopping 44-31 rebounding advantage for Wazzu.

Although the Cougars were slightly better in terms of all-around play, they had more possessions which negates that slight 74-72 advantage in AAP. The Oregon Ducks were far more efficient, and the only reason why this game was close was because of the rebounding difference. The Cougars had the higher FG% (37.1% to 36.1%) by one percentage point, but they were the worse shooting team when factoring in three-pointers. The metric eFG% is a better way to look at a team’s shooting ability, and the Ducks led in this regard 44.3% to 43.6%.

It’s always nice to win a close road game in a hostile environment, and the Ducks are now closer to .500 in Pac-12 play. On the other hand, the Cougars are 4-9 in conference play, but they gave the favored Ducks an extremely difficult game. However, it is always disappointing to blow a double-digit lead and fall apart at the end, but that’s the mark of a poor team. The Cougars are a well below-average team, because they are so inefficient. Efficient ballclubs don’t blow leads, and there is a direct correlation between efficiency and the ability to maintain a lead. Teams who average .80 points per play will experience a regression within the game at some point, and the Cougars witnessed this first hand.

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