Washington State Cougars crush Oregon Ducks 75-47

Wow, who saw this one coming? Even without Nia Jackson- and Amanda Johnson- the Oregon Ducks should have won this game. Instead, they were blown out and managed just 47 points in this game, despite being one of the best offensive teams in the country. The lady Ducks were a no-show in this game and committed 24 costly turnovers; a season high. The Ducks are now 8-5 and lost in front of 1,777 fans by shooting just 25.8% from the floor.

What really strikes a sour note is that the Ducks hit just 26.5% of their two-pointers and went 7-28 from beyond the arc. Yeah, they took 27 threes and managed to hit a quarter of them. The usually sharp Jordan Loera knocked down just one from downtown and attempted six in the game, while Amanda Delgado went 1-5.

However, there were two Ducks players who didn’t have an off-game and played pretty well. It’s no surprise that one of them is Jasmin Holliday who scored a team-high 12 points and tied the Cougars Jazmine Perkins with a game-high 12 rebounds. She also was responsible for three blocked shots, but it should be noted that she also turned the ball over three times. Deanna Weaver had ten points and eight rebounds in a quietly good performance.

One of the key battles in this game was the battle between the benches, and Wazzu easily won and outscored the Ducks bench 38-7. Rosetta Adzasu and Carly Noyes led the way with 15 and 10 points respectively off the bench. Noyes also added six rebounds and two blocks and played in the most minutes of any bench player with 23; Adzasu was right behind her with 22 minutes played. The only significant bench contribution that Oregon received were the six rebounds and three steals courtesy of Liz Brenner. However, Lexi Peterson had a night to forget and turned the ball over three times in the span of 13 minutes; she did, however, draw two fouls and added two steals.

The Oregon Ducks really should have won this game, and this was really a shocking blowout in my eyes. I realize the Ducks were playing without their best and third-best players, but they really beat themselves. The men’s team and women’s team had inversely proportional shooting performances, in that the lady Ducks literally couldn’t buy a shot. The usually sharpshooting Ducks were quite poor in this regard, and 24 turnovers only digs a team that can’t shoot on a certain night into a deeper hole. They need to pick themselves back up, because they cannot afford to play like this against Washington. I’m sure they’ll bounce back- this seems like a fluky game- but this was supposed to be a very easy game for Oregon.

The loss is excusable to a certain extent, because Jackson and Johnson are both team captains, and Jackson’s injury was unforeseen. In the preview for this game, I listed the All Pac-10 selection as a likely candidate for game MVP, but she showed up to the pregame shootaround with a swollen right knee and missed her first game of the season. The team struggled mightily without their point guard, and Jackson is currently listed as day-to-day; they really do need her as soon as possible, especially without Johnson.

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