Endyia Rogers carries Oregon to crucial win in Pac-12 tournament opener

Oregon began the day fighting for its NCAA tournament lives.

According to ESPN bracket analyst Charlie Creme, the Ducks were the last team out of the tournament field as of Tuesday evening.

A little less than 24 hours later, Endyia Rogers took it upon herself to ensure the Ducks would live to fight another day.

Rogers scored 28 points and grabbed a career-high 11 rebounds to lead Oregon to a thrilling 52-50 win over Washington in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas.

“We knew it was win or go home,” Rogers said on the Pac-12 Network postgame show. “There’s a lot of people here who came to see us play, to see us survive and advance.”

With Oregon trailing 43-38 and in desperate need of a spark, Rogers re-entered the game with 4:46 left in the fourth quarter and proceeded to score 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting down the stretch.

Rogers’ final three field goals of the day came with the Ducks trailing by one point, and her final bucket — a pull-up jumper — gave her team the lead for good.

“Endyia down the stretch was just big,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said in a postgame interview with the Pac-12 Network. “We ran everything through her and she delivered. It was such a great win. … I’m just really proud of our team.”

Te-Hina Paopao finished with 13 points and four assists for the Ducks, who were dealing with a flurry of injuries. Freshman standouts Grace VanSlooten and Chance Gray were both questionable to play on Wednesday and battled through respective injuries against the Huskies. Van Slooten finished with two points in 14 minutes, and Gray had one point in 29 minutes.

In the second round of tournament play, the No. 9-seed Ducks will face No. 1-seeded Stanford at 2:30 p.m. PT at Michelob Ultra Arena on Thursday.

How it happened

Oregon came flying out of the gates and took a quick 11-2 lead thanks to some sharpshooting from Paopao.

But the Huskies slowly but surely started to claw their way back into contention. By the end of the first quarter, they had trimmed the lead to 13-9. By halftime, they had taken control of the game and took a 29-27 lead into the break.

The Ducks took back the lead early in the second half on a three from Rogers. But the Huskies responded with a layup from Trinity Oliver to take control of the game for good.

Oregon tied the game twice during the third quarter but wasn’t able to jump ahead at any point. Starting center Phillipina Kyei left the game with an apparent injury midway through the third and did not return until early in the fourth quarter.

She re-entered the game with 8:17 to go when VanSlooten picked up her fourth foul of the day. At that point, the Huskies led 40-36. They pushed their lead to seven points next time down the floor on a Haley VanDyke three.

With time running out, and Oregon in desperate need of a bucket, Rogers re-entered the game with 4:46 to go and immediately sparked the Ducks to life.

Rogers scored 10 of Oregon’s final 16 points. On three different occasions, she and UW guard Hannah Stines traded baskets to give their respective teams the lead.

Rogers’ final bucket of the night gave the Ducks a 51-50 lead with 1:28 to go. Washington had three more possessions from that point but missed jump shots on all three occasions.

After Gray’s free throw pushed the Oregon lead to 52-50 with two seconds reaming, Washington’s Trinity Olver took a jumper at the buzzer that would have tied the game, but it fell well short.