Oregon women improve to 4-0 with a game against No. 8 North Carolina up next
The Oregon women’s basketball team has spent the first two weeks of the season feasting on overmatched opponents.
That all changes on Thanksgiving day when the No. 18 Ducks head to Portland for the start of the Phil Knight Invitational and a first-round game against No. 8 North Carolina.
“I think we’re ready for it,” said Oregon coach Kelly Graves after the Ducks improved to 4-0 Monday night with a 66-54 victory against Southern Utah in front of an announced crowd of 6,128 in Matthew Knight Arena.
“Actually,” Kelly continued, “I think it’s going to be good for us. As much as everybody thinks it’s fun to blow teams out, it’s really not. When you get competitors, they want to play against the best.”
Monday’s win was hardly a blowout, but it also wasn’t all that close, even when the Thunderbirds outscored the Ducks 21-7 in the fourth quarter.
Te-Hina Paopao led the way for Oregon with a team-high 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting, including 3-for-3 on her 3-point attempts.
“Te-Hina played a really good game tonight and was under control the whole time,” Graves said. “She’s really been doing that for us all year.”
Freshmen Chance Gray and Grace VanSlooten also scored 12 each for the Ducks, and Phillipina Kyei had six points and nine rebounds.
The Ducks led 35-25 at halftime then outscored the Thunderbirds 24-8 in the third quarter to extend their lead to 59-33, putting the game far out of reach, though Oregon’s inability to hold its big lead in the fourth quarter had Graves lamenting his team's inconsistency.
“It was a little disappointing to be honest with you,” he said.
Oregon’s game against North Carolina (4-0) is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday at the Chiles Center on the University of Portland campus, which will be followed by a 4:30 game between No. 5 Iowa State and Michigan State.
“North Carolina, I’ve seen then a couple of times, and they’re really, really good,” Graves said. “They’re athletic, they’ve got playmakers, they’ve got size, they’re really the whole package.”
It’s the type of opponent Oregon can ill-afford to have the lapses in performance it displayed at times on Monday, when the Ducks were outrebounded 41-33 overall and outshot 46.7%-18.8% in the fourth quarter.
“If we play like this, it won’t be much of a game,” Graves said. “We’re gonna have to play a lot better, no question about it. These were good tune-ups, I guess, going into that tournament, but now it gets real. It gets real. Hopefully our kids maybe learned a lesson tonight.”
The two winners of Thursday’s game will play in the championship game at 4:30 p.m. Sunday in Moda Center. The losers will play at 10 a.m. Sunday in Memorial Coliseum.
“I’m super excited to see what our team can do versus a top-10 team,” Paopao said. “We just gotta put a whole game together and then I know we’re going to be great.”
There will also be a four-team Phil Knight Legacy tournament at the same venues Friday and Sunday featuring Oregon State, No. 3 UConn, No. 9 Iowa and Duke.
Follow Chris Hansen on Twitter @chansen_RG or email at chansen@registerguard.com.
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Up Next
Phil Knight Invitational in Portland
THURSDAY
Game 1: No. 18 Oregon vs. No. 8 North Carolina, 2 p.m., Chiles Center (ESPNU)
Game 2: No. 5 Iowa State vs. Michigan State, 4:30 p.m., Chiles Center (ESPNU)
SUNDAY
Winner of Game 1 vs. winner of Game 2, 4:30 p.m. Moda Center (ESPN2)
Loser of Game 1 vs. loser of Game 2: 10 a.m., Memorial Coliseum (ESPN2)
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon Ducks women's basketball 4-0 with No. 8 North Carolina up next
