Oregon women's basketball announces home and home series with Baylor
The Oregon women’s basketball program has agreed to a home-and-home series with Baylor that will begin during the 2023-24 season, Ducks’ head coach Kelly Graves announced on Monday.
The Ducks and Bears will face off on Dec. 3, 2023, at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas. Oregon and Baylor will play in Eugene during the 2024-25 season.
“We are always looking to build a tough non-conference schedule and Baylor will be a marquee non-con opponent for us,” Graves said in a press release. “A matchup against such a quality program will help us prepare for the gauntlet of the Pac-12 schedule, and it will be good for our young team to take a great opponent in a tough environment.”
This season’s showdown will mark the first meeting between the two programs since the 2019 Final Four when the No. 1-ranked Bears emerged with a 72-67 victory over the Sabrina Ionescu-led Ducks. Baylor leads the all-time series 4-0.
During Nicki Collen’s second season at the helm of the Baylor program, the Bears went 20-13 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament before falling to UConn.
The Ducks, meanwhile, finished the 2022-23 campaign 20-15 and reached the quarterfinals of the NIT. For the second straight offseason, Oregon saw a flurry of key contributors depart via the transfer portal.
All-conference guards Te-Hina Paopao and Endyia Rogers, among others, opted to transfer away from the program in the spring.
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To account for departures, Graves and his staff made five transfer additions.
Former North Alabama guard Skyler Gill, former Liberty guard Kennedi Williams, former Miami (Ohio) point guard Peyton Scott, former USF guard Priscilla Williams, and former Lane CC guard Bella Hamel have all signed with the Ducks and are listed on the program’s official roster.
The Ducks also added three ’23 signees who are listed among ESPN’s top 100 prospects: Sofia Bell (No. 26), Sammie Wagner (No. 42), and Sarah Rambus (No. 66).
Grace VanSlooten, Chance Gray, and Kennedy Basham are all rising sophomores who forged a 2022 recruiting class that was tabbed by ESPN as the second-best in the nation.
VanSlooten was an honorable mention all-conference selection as a true freshman last year, and both VanSlooten and Gray were named to the Pac-12 all-freshman team.
Oregon will also return starting center Phillipina Kyei.
According to a press release, Oregon’s full 2023-24 conference and non-conference schedules, along with ticket and broadcast information, will be announced at a later date.
