Team-First Attitude Kept McGwire Ready To Resume Starting Role

When senior guard Lexi Bando was sidelined by a lower leg injury in mid-January, the Oregon women's basketball team faced playing in the near future without the NCAA's active career leader in three-point percentage.

For most teams, that would be a huge hole to fill. But the No. 7 Ducks aren't most teams. To replace Bando in the starting lineup, UO coach Kelly Graves could turn to a player with 36 career starts to her name, forward Mallory McGwire.

To be sure, the Ducks will miss Bando's ability to stretch the defense, again this week when they play without her on the Mountain road trip that begins at Colorado on Friday (7 p.m., Pac-12 Network). Playing with two posts, when McGwire and Ruthy Hebard are on the floor together, requires the Ducks to adjust their offense significantly.

But McGwire has been a rare luxury for Graves and the Ducks this season. She reacted with maturity when freshman Satou Sabally replaced her in the starting lineup in mid-December. And she kept herself ready for her return last week, when McGwire provided 14 points and stellar defense on Oregon State post Marie Gulich in Oregon's Civil War victory Sunday.

"We challenged her on Saturday at practice, and again on game day, and she stepped up to it," Graves said this week. "We told her we needed her."

McGwire, a 6-foot-5 Reno native who played in the same club program as UO teammate Sabrina Ionescu, also entered the starting lineup at midseason in 2016-17, and was a key to Oregon's unlikely run all the way to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament. She remained a starter to open her sophomore season, but after 10 games Graves opted to surround Hebard with a floor-spreading array of perimeter players: Ionescu, Bando, Sabally and Maite Cazorla.

For the next nine games, McGwire played off the bench. But she maintained her usual sunny disposition in practice, and continued to log between 10 and 20 minutes of action most nights.

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"It wasn't as challenging as I thought it was going to be," McGwire said. "Satou's doing amazing, and I just had to work harder."

That attitude paid off last week against the Beavers. McGwire had 10 points and nine rebounds in her return to the lineup, at Oregon State, and then was the Ducks' most important player in the win two nights later in Matthew Knight Arena.

In the two games, McGwire shot 12-of-20, a 60 percent clip made all the more impressive by the fact it included a significant number of the midrange jumpers that became her trademark last season.

McGwire made 5-of-11 attempts in Corvallis, then 7-of-9 in Eugene, and the improvement owed in part to her longtime friend and teammate Ionescu. When the two would run "pick-and-pop" plays at OSU, McGwire was setting a screen and then drifting out too far toward the three-point line, just outside her comfort zone. In practice between games, Ionescu urged her to pop out closer to the free-throw line, and the results showed Sunday.

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"She's a pure shooter," Graves said, before hinting that McGwire could actually become a three-point threat by this time next year. "We're gonna extend that range. She's worked on it (and) I think next year we'll actually have that as a weapon for us."

McGwire also is a talented passer, often a pivot point offensively with the game on the line. And her defense on Gulich was a huge key to Sunday's victory.

Add it all up, and Graves sees the potential for a long playing career.

"I think Mallory is a potential pro," the UO coach said. "You've just got to get her mind to it. If that's something she wants to do, I think she's capable."

McGwire is flattered by her coach's praise, but admitted doubting her own abilities at times. Her attitude in accepting the role off the bench in December had Graves of two minds: On one hand, he might have liked to see McGwire's competitiveness rise up and stoke a little anger at the decision; on the other, he appreciated that she didn't make waves among the team.

"We were up front with her, she accepted it and she made the most of her minutes when she did get in," Graves said. "It's a little of both — you want her to be angry, but at the same time, she's a team-first kid. Those that know her like we do understand that."

With Bando sidelined for at least one more week, McGwire's team-first attitude again has a chance to pay dividends for the Ducks. By keeping herself ready while playing off the bench, she was able to thrive in a return to the lineup last week.

"The work has been put in," McGwire said. "Now, it's being shown on the court."