Despite controlling the game and leading for the first 35 minutes of the game, Oregon women’s basketball found itself in a dogfight on the road against Penn State Thursday afternoon.
The Ducks started the fourth quarter on the wrong end of a 10-0 run and trailed for the first time against the Nittany Lions with five minutes to go in the game without any momentum. After the teams traded buckets and free throws down the stretch from there, the Ducks had the ball, tied at 61-61 with 32.1 seconds to play, looking for their third straight conference win.
Oregon kept it simple, giving North Carolina transfer Deja Kelly the ball and letting her work through a pick and roll with Phillipina Kyei. The senior center gave Kelly enough room to operate, get to the top of the free-throw line and sink the game-winning shot with 4.1 seconds left to give Oregon a 63-61 win on the road.
“That’s one of the reasons we brought Deja in, to make those kinds of big shots, and she did it,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said.
Kelly finished with a team-high 15 points on 7-for-14 shooting from the field, with Kyei adding 12 points and eight rebounds and Nani Falatea rounding out double-figure scorers with 10 points.
Oregon women’s basketball lacks, energy, focus vs. Penn State
The story of the game for Oregon, however, was a lack of energy and focus after a long road trip against a team that Graves admitted they should have beaten by double digits.
“Just shaking my head a little bit,” Graves said. “We’re happy we won the game and that’s the bottom line, that’s what’s most important. But I just didn’t feel like we played with the same kind of energy and focus that we need to when we’re on the road. It worked today, but its not going to work most nights.”
The Ducks shot 3 for 17 from 3-point range, were outrebounded 38-24 and let Nittany Lions guard Gabby Elliott score a game-high 26 points, leading a frantic PSU fourth-quarter comeback that saw UO go without a point for the first half of the period.
Without senior leader Peyton Scott, who is averaging over 11 points per game for the Ducks this season, Oregon is still looking for scoring answers when it gets into droughts. The Ducks led by as many as 17 points but couldn’t play a complete game for four quarters.
“We should have kind of put that away,” Graves said. “We got a little sloppy … and then they got back into it. When they got that momentum it was hard to stop them. But in the end, we did.”
What’s next for Oregon women’s basketball?
The Ducks (12-4, 3-2 Big Ten) will look to keep up their win streak Sunday against No. 9 Ohio State in Columbus. One of the Buckeyes’ (15-0, 4-0 Big Ten) most productive players is Chance Gray, who transferred from Oregon to OSU over the offseason.
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com and you can follow him on X @AlecDietz.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon Ducks women’s basketball beats Penn State Nittany Lions
