Tournament Run Ends Just Short

Sunday, March 10

Las Vegas, NV

5:00 PM

University of Oregon

29-4

Stanford

28-4

Stanford

Oregon

Photo by: @EricEvansPhoto

03/10/19 | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box: Stanford 64, Oregon 57

The Ducks fought back from a slow start to lead in the fourth quarter Sunday, but Stanford took the Pac-12 Tournament title home.

By: Rob Moseley

LAS VEGAS — Stanford evened the score, and now the Oregon women's basketball team will hold its breath to find out the NCAA Tournament implications.

A year after losing to the Ducks in the Pac-12 Tournament final, and a month to the day since a 40-point loss to the UO women at home, Stanford won its 13th conference tournament title Sunday, 64-57 over the Ducks in MGM's Grand Garden Arena. The Cardinal scored the first eight points of the game, and finished it with a 16-3 run before Sabrina Ionescu's three-pointer just before the final buzzer.

"We didn't come out and we didn't have any fire," said Ionescu, who led the Ducks with 27 points and 12 rebounds to earn her third straight all-tournament team honor. "And they came out and you could tell they really wanted to beat us. We were kind of on our heels the whole game. We fought back, but we didn't fight back long enough or hard enough to win."

Now, the Ducks and Cardinal will wait to find out how the result impacts postseason seeding. Oregon came into the day with the No. 4 RPI in the country, having won the Pac-12 regular-season title and beaten Stanford in the regular season. The Cardinal came into the day at No. 5 in the RPI, then won the conference tournament title and beat the Ducks in the final to do so.

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At stake is a seed in the NCAA Regional that will be played in Portland, following an opening weekend of games on campus sites. Will the Ducks (29-4) or Cardinal (28-4) get that coveted honor? They'll wait more than a week to find out, when the NCAA Tournament field is announced on Monday, March 18, at 4 p.m.

"I'll leave that up to whomever," UO coach Kelly Graves said. "We've earned what we've gotten. You always want to win the tournament championship, but to me the real championship is the two-month grind, that regular-season championship over two months, battling injuries. That should count for something. …

"Where they put us, we'll be ready to go wherever they send us."

The Ducks will want to be a little more ready than they looked in the opening minutes Sunday. Stanford scored on its first three possessions for an 8-0 lead, and led 18-11 after a first quarter in which Oregon looked to be playing on tired legs based on several errant jumps shots.

The lead was cut to six twice in the second, but with Stanford cutting off Oregon's pick-and-roll game, the Ducks couldn't close the gap further. It took until after halftime for the UO women to get going; they were down 38-24 in the opening minutes of the third quarter before ripping off an 18-3 run to close the period and lead for the first time all night, 42-41.

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The lead was again one after a Ionescu three-pointer put Oregon up 49-48, and she hit a short jumper for the Ducks' biggest lead all game, 51-48. But from there, Stanford buckled down — Alanna Smith tied it with a three-pointer as the shot clock expired, and then Dijonai Carrington put the Cardinal up for good with a basket-steal-basket sequence that made it 55-51.

"We continued to play hard and got back in the game," Graves said. "I was a little disappointed with our execution once we took the lead."

Now, the Ducks will try to follow in the footsteps of Notre Dame, which lost the ACC title game last season with a depleted roster, but bounced back to win the NCAA Tournament, knocking off Oregon in the Elite Eight on the way.

The Ducks have nearly two weeks off to heal up their bumps and bruises, and let the frustrations of Sunday's loss simmer. Then they'll be back on the court for the NCAA Tournament, hopefully for two straight weeks of play in the state of Oregon, but ready to make a run regardless of venue.