After Road Splits, Ducks Have Chance To Build Momentum At Home

EUGENE, Ore. – The Oregon women's basketball team takes the floor in Matthew Knight Arena on Friday evening feeling much better about itself than the last time the Ducks were deep in the woods.

The Ducks (12-6, 2-4 Pac-12) return home from a two-week road trip they departed upon after being swept on the opening weekend of conference play, by Washington and WSU in Eugene. Those results had the youthful UO women questioning themselves after an encouraging 10-2 nonconference run, but road splits in the Bay Area and Los Angeles the last two weeks turned around their spirits.

"We'll take a split on the road – with this group, right now – any time," UO coach Kelly Graves said Thursday. "The last two weekends were, I thought, really big for us. Now we just need to use that momentum and carry it through the weekend at home."

Oregon hosts Colorado (11-6, 1-5) on Friday at 6 p.m. (Pac-12 Networks), and Utah on Sunday afternoon. The Buffaloes were ranked as high as No. 15 nationally during nonconference play, before opening Pac-12 play with one victory in the first three weekends.

Colorado is coached by JR Payne, who played under Graves at Saint Mary's and was his assistant at Gonzaga. The Buffaloes lead the Pac-12 with a plus-6.35 turnover margin and force a conference-best 20.2 turnovers per game, daunting numbers for an Oregon team that committed 41 turnovers last week in Los Angeles.

"That's been our downfall the last couple weekends," Graves said. "And against good teams, you can't give them extra possessions. That's something we continue to work on, and we just have to get better at, simply put."

The Ducks hope to use the excitement of returning home to fuel a better start than any so far in Pac-12 play. Oregon has trailed after the first quarter in four of six conference games, and at halftime in all six.

The UO women rallied from behind at California and USC for back-to-back conference road wins, but they know they can't continue the trend of early deficits.

"You can't start off against teams like that; Pac-12 teams will just bury you," junior Lexi Bando said. "I think we've gained confidence from being able to know we can come back from deficits like that, but we won't be able to do that in the coming games."

Oregon's ball-handling and energy level should be much improved over the last time the Ducks were at home, given the return to action of freshman Sabrina Ionescu. The team's second-leading scorer and rebounder and top distributor last played in Matthew Knight Arena on Dec. 9 against Portland, before being sidelined by a thumb injury she returned from in the Bay Area.

"I don't even remember the last time I played here," Ionescu said. "So I'm super excited to come back and play at home."

Ionescu said she and fellow guard Maite Cazorla have watched film together of Oregon's high-turnover games at USC and UCLA, and are confident they can improve as soon as Friday.

"I think we learned from this past weekend," Ionescu said. "I'm not too worried about making the same mistakes, because I think we all learned from it."