Women’s NCAA Tournament: Oregon Ducks Fall To Notre Dame In Sweet 16

The Oregon Ducks ended their season in the Sweet 16 for the second straight year continuing a record-setting pace.

While Oregon struggled in the second half, Graves was working on his post-game speech. This Oregon Ducks team had the talent to get to their first Final Four in Program History, but the Notre Dame Offense in the second half, who outrebounded the Ducks from the start of the third quarter made a comeback and shut down Oregon in the final minutes.

Sabrina Ionescu brought her A-Game in the first half and had her way with the Fighting Irish. In the second half, Notre Dame put up a front that she could not get past. She finished the game 1 for 9 from the floor with just 7 points in the final two quarters.

Arika Ogunbuwale was held to just 2 points in the first two quarters. She found the basket in the second half finishing with 19 points. Ruthy Hebard, the Ducks inside threat struggled in the second half with Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish outscored the Ducks in the paint 52-38 winning by 10 points, 84-74 in the Spokane Regional Final.

The story of the game that wasn’t talked about much was the career of Lexi Bando. She came to Oregon in Graves’ first season and ended her career getting to two Sweet 16’s and leading the charge from beyond the arc. For her career she reset the record book hitting 45.7 percent from three-point range setting a University of Oregon and also a Pac-12 Conference record in the process.

The offseason now begins for the Oregon Ducks with the building blocks and experience in place for this team to reach even higher goals in the seasons ahead.

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Notre Dame will face Connecticut on Friday in the Final Four.