Oregon's Season Comes to an End in the NCAA Tournament
On Sunday morning, Oregon faced a tough test with No. 2 seed Duke on their home court. The Ducks were a massive underdog headed into the contest but Kelly Graves had the women firing from the first whistle.
Duke had a tough time with Oregon’s tallest interior player, Phillipina Kyei. She didn’t account for a ton of points in the game overall but her presence was a big impact on both ends of the floor. Kyei finished her Oregon career with 14 points and 13 rebounds.
The Ducks went into halftime with a slight 28-23 lead. Oregon had built a bigger lead for most of the first half but Duke finished with a flurry headed into halftime.
That lead quickly disappeared in the second half, after about 41 seconds, as Duke made some key halftime adjustments and Oregon failed to score for about half of the third quarter. Oregon senior Deja Kelly managed to get things going again to spark the Ducks heading into the fourth quarter.
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“Usually, the third quarter has been our quarter, and today Duke came out and just kind of put their foot down a little bit to start the quarter,” said head coach Kelly Graves. “It took us a little bit to kind of get back and stand up.”
With Oregon losing its lead in the third and being outscored 22-12, the Blue Devils only led by 5 to start the fourth quarter.
“I was really proud of how we played in that first half, but you can’t just play 20 minutes of basketball,” Kelly added. “I think that’s where our kind of defensive lapses kind of happened early on in that third quarter, and we just dug ourselves too deep of a hole.”
Deja Kelly led Oregon in scoring with multiple big shots on the way to her 20-point performance. No matter how close Oregon got to Duke, the Blue Devils had an answer and were able to put the game away with a final of 59-53.
It’s worth noting Oregon guard Peyton Scott left the game in the third quarter and returned to the bench on crutches.
“This has been truly one of the best years of my career,” said Kelly. “I could not be more thankful for this group, for the staff, for the program, not only for welcoming me with open arms, but KG said I reenergized the program, they reenergized me.”
