1:02 pm | March 31, 2019 | Go to Source | Author:
PORTLAND — While he recognized the importance of his Oregon Ducks team reaching the Elite Eight for a third consecutive year with Friday’s win over South Dakota State, coach Kelly Graves had bigger goals in mind after losing at this stage each of the last two years.
“We want to break through that ceiling,” Graves said Saturday. “We don’t want to be just an Elite Eight program, we want to be a Final Four and perhaps a national championship program.”
Oregon reached the first part of that goal Sunday in front of a crowd of more than 11,500 wearing primarily Ducks green and yellow, knocking off the top-seeded Mississippi State Bulldogs 88-84 to reach the Women’s Final Four for the first time in school history.
Naturally, it was junior star guard Sabrina Ionescu, the Pac-12 Player of the Year, who played a driving role down the stretch. Ionescu scored 14 of her game-high 31 points in the final quarter, making key shots time and again to hold off a Mississippi State team that had reached the NCAA championship game each of the last two seasons. The biggest was a 3-pointer with 1:13 left, pushing Oregon’s lead from three to six. A Maite Cazorla triple on the subsequent possession, the Ducks’ 13th of the game in 26 attempts, all but sealed the victory.
Ionescu had plenty of help. On Friday night, after the Ducks beat South Dakota State in the regional semifinals, sophomore forward Satou Sabally said she had been hoping for another game against the Bulldogs. Though Oregon won 82-74 when the teams played in Eugene in December, Sabally wasn’t a big factor, scoring just four points in 17 minutes.
This time around, Sabally beat that total in the first quarter en route to 22 points on 7-of-15 shooting, seven rebounds, three assists and three blocks. Sabally’s contributions helped the Ducks survive early foul trouble for their other starting post player, Ruthy Hebard, who picked up her second foul midway through the second quarter and sat until halftime. Hebard got going in the second half, scoring 10 of her 14 points after halftime and coming up with back-to-back blocks in the fourth quarter with Oregon clinging to the lead.
Despite their impressive shot making, the Ducks couldn’t shake Mississippi State until the final minute of the game. In her final collegiate game, Bulldogs center Teaira McCowan had far more impact than she had in the first meeting between the teams, when she was held to single-digits for one of just two times all season. By halftime, McCowan had a double-double (12 points and 10 rebounds), finishing with 19 and 15 even with Oregon regularly sending two and even three defenders at her.
Mississippi State’s shooters took advantage of the opportunities created by Oregon’s aggressive defense on McCowan, knocking down eight 3-pointers in 13 attempts. Ordinarily, that kind of offensive efficiency — the Bulldogs averaged more than 1.3 points per possession — would translate into a victory. But in this matchup of two high-powered offenses, Oregon’s sharpshooting won the day.
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