Ducks Eye Breakthrough In Seattle

SEATTLE — One benefit of taking a freshman-laden team to the Pac-12 women's basketball tournament is that many of the young Oregon Ducks have little idea of the program's recent record of futility in KeyArena.

Since the event moved north, the UO women are 0-4. The Ducks last won in the tournament in 2008, when it was hosted by San Jose, Calif.

But at present, the Oregon women — who finished the regular season with three straight losses — are all about fresh starts. So why not apply that not just to this recent stretch, but to conference tournament history as well?

"I think our kids are excited and ready," head coach Kelly Graves said. "We obviously have shown we can play with anybody. Now, we just hopefully have the mental toughness, the physical toughness, to battle through what hopefully will be four games in four days. That's quite a challenge; we know it. But our kids are excited about that challenge."

The Ducks (18-12) entered the tournament as the No. 6 seed. They open play Thursday (8:30 p.m., Pac-12 Network) against the team that eliminated them a year ago, No. 11 seed Arizona (14-15).

Two weeks ago, after sweeping then-11th ranked UCLA and USC at home, Oregon still was in contention for a top-four finish in the Pac-12 standings, and thus a first-round bye this week. But after opening their stretch run with a win over Utah, the Ducks lost to Colorado, Cal and No. 8 Stanford to close out the regular season.

"I'm really excited to go in with a fresh start," said Sabrina Ionescu, who on Wednesday was named Pac-12 freshman of the year and all-Pac-12 in a vote of conference media members. "It resets every team, and you just go out there and play. And the team that plays the best is going to win."

The Ducks last won two Pac-12 Tournament games in its very first iteration, when Eugene hosted the event in 2002. Repeating that run will be a tall order — win Thursday and the Ducks would play Friday against Washington, the hometown school led by newly crowned NCAA all-time leading scorer Kelsey Plum.

Conventional wisdom holds that Oregon probably needs to win Thursday to solidify its NCAA Tournament position; ESPN this week projected the Ducks as a No. 9 seed. A second win Friday would presumably lock up a bid for the Ducks — but after openly speculating about his team's tournament chances a couple weeks ago, Graves was more reticent this week.

"Honestly, I don't know," Graves said. "All we can worry about is winning the game on Thursday to get to Friday. All of that is out of our hands, to some degree, after your final game is played. So let's win as many games as we can, and that will make us look better."

The Ducks will try to kick off an extended conference tournament run Thursday night against Arizona. The Wildcats hosted Oregon on Feb. 3, a 79-65 victory for the Ducks in which they limited themselves to 12 turnovers, and Arizona to .391 shooting.

"What you've got is a really athletic team that will put pressure on us," Graves said. "And if you can handle the pressure, you'll get good shots. But if you turn the ball over, they're going to get out in transition, they're going to get easy opportunities, and that's what makes them difficult."

Oregon has taken care of the ball reasonably well of late, averaging 13 turnovers in their current three-game losing streak, under the season average. But 13 was an important number for another reason last week against Cal and Stanford — the Bay Area teams outrebounded the Ducks by an average of 13 per game.

Thursday against Arizona, Oregon hopes to both hang on to the ball and play closer to even on the boards — and to end its recent one-and-done trend at the Pac-12 Tournament.

"We talked right from the start about three seasons: you have the preseason, you have the regular season and now you have the postseason," Graves said. "So it's a whole different mindset, but also a reset, so to speak. So our kids, not really knowing what to expect, I think they're excited for a new challenge."

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Players Mentioned

Sabrina Ionescu

University of Oregon Athletics