The morning of the Utes women’s basketball team’s marquee game against Oregon, the University of Utah announced it had been gifted $6 million to bolster its women’s varsity and club sports teams.
The Utes, in turn, gifted the No. 3 Ducks free looks at the basket in a 90-63 Pac-12 Conference loss Thursday night at the Huntsman Center.
Oregon made 12 straight shots in a seven-minute span, blowing open a 7-7 tie to double up the Utes 32-16 at the end of the first quarter. The Ducks (18-2, 8-1) finished the quarter shooting 80% (12 of 15) from the field and 83% (5 of 6) from behind the arc (as well as 100% on two free throws).
By the time Jaz Shelley missed her layup when Kemery Martin fouled her 45 seconds into the second quarter, the Ducks had outscored the Utes 28-9, including runs of 10-0 and 9-0. They went on another 9-0 run in the final 2:59 of the second quarter, while Utah (10-10, 3-6) was quiet for 4:10, to double up the Utes again, 52-26 at the half.
Twenty-one of those Oregon points came off fast breaks.
“They had 21 fast-break points at halftime. That’s fast-break points. Nobody misses too many of those,” Utah coach Lynne Roberts said while attributing those points to poor shot selection by the Utes. “And then once you kind of get going, they’re a team that can just kind of pile it on quickly, and that’s what we saw.”
The Ducks couldn’t maintain that near-perfect pace for the entire 40 minutes and dropped to a more pedestrian 55.4% from the field and 45% on 3s for the game.
Junior forward Satou Sabally led all scorers with 23 points, including a pair of back-to-back first-quarter 3s, and fellow 6-foot-4 forward Ruthy Hebard added 21 points and 13 rebounds. Sabrina Ionescu chipped in 10 points. The senior guard also extended her Pac-12 Conference assist record, which she took over from Gary Payton on Friday, by 10, bringing her total up to 960.
“By nature, she’s a pass-first player," Oregon coach Kelly Graves said. "Always has been.”
The Utes exploded out of the gate thanks to sophomore guard Dru Gylten. She turned a rebound into a fast-break layup and then stole the ball for a Daneesha Provo 3-pointer to start the game. Though momentarily stunned, the Ducks quickly shut her down. From there, it was up to freshman Martin of Sandy to do most of Utah’s scoring. She finished with 15 points.
“She’s starting to play with that swagger, confident look in her eye, poise, that (attitude) we’ve all been waiting for,” Roberts said. “She was the leading scorer for us at Stanford. She was the leading scorer for us tonight. Again, I think she’s coming into her own.”
Freshman center Lola Pendande (six points, two rebounds) also provided some highlights for the Utes with her post play and defense. She recorded only 17 minutes on the floor, however, and picked up her fifth foul with 4:55 to play.
The Utes shot 38.5% (25 of 65) from the field and 25.7% (9 of 35) behind the arc for the game.
“They’re going to get shots," Roberts said of Oregon. "What beat us is that we gave them easy ones in the first quarter, and that put us in a hole that was kind of just too big to overcome.”
The loss left Roberts, in her fifth year at Utah, still seeking her first win over Oregon. However, this meeting was better than the last, in which the Ducks handed the Utes their worst loss in nine years of Pac-12 play, 88-51, in Eugene during their first meeting of the season. The Utes’ last win over the Ducks came in February 2015, the season before Roberts arrived in Salt Lake City.
Perhaps the Utes will be feeling stingier Saturday when they host No. 10 Oregon State. Roberts’ teams also haven’t been able to solve the Beavers, dropping to 0-7 with their 77-48 loss in Corvallis to open the new year. But, if Utah can’t win one of this weekend’s games, its odds of reaching the postseason diminish considerably.
Martin said it will take a team effort.
“It’s crazy how good it feels when everyone’s on the same page,” she said.
The Ducks, meanwhile, play at Colorado on Saturday before heading east for a showdown at No. 4 UConn on Monday in Storrs, Conn.
STORYLINES
• Oregon shoots 80 percent from the field and 83 percent from behind the arc in the first quarter to break open a tied game.
• Sabrina Ionescu made as many assists (10) as the entire Utah team, bringing her Pac-12 all-time career record to 960.
• Sandy freshman Kemery Martin leads Utah with 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting.
• Utah announced earlier Thursday it had been gifted $6 million to support women’s varsity volleyball and basketball as well as club sports by Harriet and Leo Hopf.