After Setting High Bar, Ducks Look To Sustain In Desert

A week ago, Kelly Graves wanted to see his UO women's basketball team snap out of a nonconference funk in time for the start of Pac-12 play.

The result? In wins over previously unbeaten Colorado and then Utah, Oregon averaged 96 points and allowed 48.5 per game — essentially doubling up the competition.

"We've set a really high bar," Graves acknowledged this week. "And we need to stay at that level."

Sustaining that level with be important as the Ducks enter the second week of Pac-12 play, but also substantially difficult. No. 2 Oregon (12-1, 2-0 Pac-12) plays Friday at Arizona State and then Sunday at resurgent Arizona. Outside of a trip to face the Ducks and Beavers by Pac-12 teams, the trip to the desert could arguably be the toughest 1-2 punch in the conference right now.

"We know that, from here on out, every team we play is going to be really great competition," UO junior Erin Boley said. "We're going to have to bring it on both ends of the floor."

The Sun Devils have made no secret over the years of their preferred style of play — wave after wave of players coming in off the bench, looking to set a physical tone at a grinding, methodical pace. Arizona State makes it hard to sustain a high level of play, but that remains Oregon's goal entering this week, after setting the bar so high at the start of the conference slate.

"When we look brilliant, we're as good a team as there is in the country," Graves said. "And then we'll have a letdown. We're getting fewer and fewer, and they're smaller and smaller letdowns. But it's still part of what we've seen this year. We can't have that now."

The trip to the desert means a test for Oregon's top-ranked offense in the country against two top-25 defenses.

Entering play around the country Thursday, the Ducks led the nation in scoring at 89.3 points per game. Arizona had the No. 1 scoring defense, allowing 47.1 points per game, and ASU was 23rd in defense at 55.2 points per game.

"And," Graves asked rhetorically this week, "guess who also is in the top 25 in defense?"

There tucked between the Wildcats and Sun Devils are the Ducks, at No. 19 nationally in scoring defense, allowing 54.9 points per game. Albeit just one week into the Pac-12 gantlet, Oregon is allowing nearly 10 fewer points per game than a year ago.

Some of that owes to the presence of graduate transfer Minyon Moore, a fierce on-ball defender whose energy and communication at the defensive end has permeated the entire team. But also, Graves said, the Ducks took a hard lesson from their lone loss of the year, to Louisville.

Oregon had its worst three-point shooting performance of the season so far that day, 6-of-35, while allowing Louisville to shoot nearly 50 percent. Since then, no UO opponent has shot better than 37 percent.

"Guess what — you're gonna have some of those nights," Graves said. "So, can you rely on your defense to keep you in the game, and even win the game? … You can learn from a loss. And I think we did."

Among the best storylines of this weekend for the UO women is a homecoming for sophomore guard Taylor Chavez, who was injured just prior to the Ducks' trip to the desert last season.

A native of Surprise, Ariz., northwest of Phoenix, Chavez is playing 18 minutes a game off the bench this season, and leads the Ducks in three-point shooting at 45 percent.

"It's my grandma's first time seeing me playing in an Oregon uniform, so that's exciting," Chavez said.

Chavez had 10 points in the Ducks' Pac-12 opener against Utah, contributing to a UO bench that gave the opposition no quarter once the starters went to the bench late in both victories last week.
"It's very competitive," Chavez said of the dynamic among Oregon's reserves. "Every single day in practice, everyone's working hard and going at it for those minutes. I think it's helped the level of practice."