Final Four Bound!

Sunday, March 31

Portland, OR

11:00 AM

University of Oregon

33-4

Mississippi State

33-3

Oregon

Mississippi St.

Photo by: Samuel Marshall

03/31/19 | Women's Basketball

Box Score NCAA Mississippi State Box NCAA Highlights Postgame Press Conference

The Oregon women's basketball team is headed to the Women's Final Four after beating Mississippi State in the Elite Eight on Sunday, 88-84.

By: Rob Moseley

PORTLAND — When the Oregon women's basketball team meets in its locker room for the final time before tipoff, head coach Kelly Graves begins with a brief review of the opposing personnel and the game plan on offense.

Then, Graves has assistant Mark Campbell go over the defensive keys, before asking staff members Jodie Berry and Xavi Lopez for their input. And finally, Graves asks aloud: "Anything from the cheap seats?"

That's the cue for non-coaching staff members to chime in. On Sunday, before the Ducks faced top-seeded Mississippi State in the NCAA Tournament's Portland Regional final, with a spot in the Final Four on the line, strength and conditioning coach Mark Dillon spoke up.

"Have a shark mentality," Dillon told the UO women. "When sharks smell blood, they attack."

Around two hours later, the Ducks did just that. As a result, they're headed to Tampa, Fla., to play Friday in the program's first Final Four.

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In just the fifth season under Graves, Oregon (33-4) advanced to its third straight Elite Eight and this time was victorious, making key play after key play in the final few minutes to beat the Bulldogs, 88-84. The game was an instant classic, featuring 11 ties, the last at 59-59 to open the fourth quarter, and 15 lead changes — but none over the final 10 minutes, owing to Oregon's shark mentality.

Sensational UO junior Sabrina Ionescu scored two of her game-high 31 points to open the scoring in the final period, and the Ducks never trailed again. Their lead didn't get any bigger than five until Ionescu made a step-back three-pointer from the top of the key with 1:13 left in the game, for an 81-75 lead.

Ionescu and the Ducks smelled blood in the water. And they attacked.

"That was going in regardless," Ionescu said. 'No other way to say it. I wanted to finish this game off the right way. We've come so far. We played so hard that entire game. I knew it was my time to hit a big-time shot. Ruthy (Hebard) set a great screen, the spacing was great. I think that just shows we've been learning from the games we've been playing in.

"At that moment in time, I didn't want it to go to overtime. I didn't want to give them any more opportunities to score. I was also pretty tired. Let me hit this and walk off to the Final Four."

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Ionescu's three-pointer was the sixth straight made field-goal attempt by Oregon over the final 5:33 of the fourth quarter, and senior Maite Cazorla made it seven in a row to close the game with another three that made it 84-77 with 35 seconds left.

After two seasons of disappointment in the Elite Eight round, the Ducks made sure Sunday that the third time was a charm.

"This was a great showcase for women's basketball today," Graves said. "I thought the crowd was amazing. The people here at Portland did such an awesome job with the entire tournament. That was as well-played a basketball game as I think you're going to find anywhere. I thought that is about as good as women's basketball can get.

"Really proud, though, of our poise and our confidence and how we played down the stretch. … The Ducks really earned this."

Sunday's game was a rematch of a December nonconference game between the Ducks and Bulldogs, who feature all-American Teaira McCowan at center. She was a force in the post Sunday, with 19 points and 15 rebounds. But like the first time the two teams met, also a UO win, Oregon's Ruthy Hebard wore down McCowan, who had just one field goal in the fourth quarter of the Elite Eight matchup.

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It was a different story early in the game, as McCowan had five points and five rebounds in the first quarter, helping Mississippi State to a 21-19 lead in its quest to make a third straight national championship game. But the Ducks fought back to a 40-38 halftime lead thanks largely to 8-of-15 three-point shooting, with Ionescu making three in the first half alone, Cazorla and Satou Sabally hitting two each and Erin Boley connecting once — two days after Oregon was 4-of-20 as a team from behind the arc in a Sweet Sixteen win over South Dakota State.

The hot streak from long range helped the Ducks take a lead into halftime of an Elite Eight game for the second year in a row. Graves reminded the Ducks pregame of their inability to hold that lead a year earlier against Notre Dame, noting that Oregon was overwhelmed from start to finish in its first Elite Eight appearance, against Connecticut in 2017, and played only 20 quality minutes against the Irish before losing in 2018.

Winning on such a stage would take a full 40-minute performance, the UO coach told his Ducks pregame. As Oregon's players waited at halftime for the coaches to enter the locker room and review any potential adjustments, Sabally reiterated the point.

"Guys," said Sabally, who scored 22 points Sunday and is averaging 19 points per game in this NCAA Tournament. "We win these 20 minutes, and we're going to Tampa."

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The second-half frustrations a year earlier were apparent right off the bat, as the Ducks missed two quality open looks to start the third quarter, then were beaten badly on Notre Dame's offensive glass. On Sunday, Oregon didn't make a three-point attempt in the third quarter, but the Ducks also started to even the scales against McCowan in the post.

Hebard scored on Oregon's bread-and-butter play to open the second half, a pick-and-roll with Sabally, one of four field goals by Hebard in the third quarter. And she also took a charge from the 6-foot-7 McCowan to keep the game tied at 59-59 entering the final period.

"I think we just kept it up," Hebard said of the Ducks' efforts against McCowan. "We knew what we needed to do to defend her, being physical, pushing her out. We had great guards around us getting rebounds, tipped balls."

Though Mississippi State's big post wasn't a huge factor in the fourth, the Bulldogs stayed in the game with help from a marvelous array of midrange shots. One such jumper by MSU kept the Bulldogs within 76-73, and the lead remained three at 78-75 when the game's key sequence unfolded.

Hebard blocked a shot by McCowan, then another by one of her teammates. At the other end, Ionescu made her step-back three-pointer. Soon after, the Ducks were celebrating.

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Confetti rained down from the Moda Center rafters after the final buzzer sounded. Friends and family of the Ducks flooded the court for hugs and photos, and the regional championship trophy was presented.

A year earlier, after the loss to Notre Dame, Ionescu said Oregon would come back in 2018-19, "hunting the Final Four." On Sunday, they bagged that trophy. They were elated on the court after the game, in the locker room as they doused Graves and then Hebard with water, and in a postgame press conference.

At that media event, the Ducks were asked: Among all the emotions of the back-and-forth game, were they able to take a moment to say, wow, this is fun? Another moment from the coaching staff's pregame chat with the team in its locker room helped Ionescu provide an answer.

"That was the last thing Coach Graves said to us before we went out there today," she said. "He said, 'Have fun.' He left it at that. We wouldn't take this moment for granted. Regardless what the outcome was, we wanted to have fun together and continue to have fun. So we did."

And they'll continue to do so, all the way to Tampa.