Deja Kelly and the Oregon Women's basketball team (19-11) meet Vanderbilt (22-10) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Friday at 2:30 p.m. PDT at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, North Carolina. The seven-seed Commodores are a 5.5-point favorite over the 10th-seeded Ducks, who ended the regular season with three losses in four games.
The game will be televised nationally on ESPNEWS, a channel available on most streaming services including Sling TV, YouTube TV, Hulu, DirecTV Stream. On Xfinity it can be found at Channel 72 or channel 572 HD, Direct TV, channel 207, DISH, channel 142.
At the press conference leading up to the game reporters asked Oregon coach Kelly Graves what his message would be to his team, heading in to tournament play as a lower seed. In his 25-year head coaching career he's taken four teams to the Elite Eight, the 2018 squad to the Final Four.
Graves said, “Just have fun. Seriously, have fun.”
“We can’t worry about the seed,” Graves said. “We’re just going to have, hey, we go out and do the best we can kind of attitude. That has helped us in the past.”
The Commies are led by guard Mikayla Blakes, who shoots 46 percent from the floor and scores 23.3 points a game. Vandy plays at a blistering pace-- in recent games they've won 100-59 over Missouri and 91-58 over Texas A&M.
Oregon can counter with Kelly, a transfer from North Carolina who'll be playing in familiar surroundings in a hallowed building. Inside, the Ducks rely on 6-8 center Phillipina Kyei, a three-year starter at center from Calgary, Alberta who averages 7.5 points and 6.9 rebounds a game. Guards Peyton Scott and Nani Falatea are Graves' best weapons from three-point range, each hitting over 34 percent.
Echoing her coach, Scott said, “It doesn’t matter what your seed is, doesn’t matter who you’re playing, or where you’re playing. Anything can happen in March, and we’ve seen in every single year."