Los Angeles, CA- Kara Dunn came out Tuesday night returning home at the Galen Center with a vengeance or hunger after that disastrous 34-point loss to crosstown rival UCLA on Saturday, scoring a game high 21 points though not enough to fight off a late fourth quarter surge by Oregon to steal a critical league game on the road, 71–66.
“Credit to Oregon…I’m not surprised that they hung in there when they were down. I’ve seen them do it. Obviously, the Michigan game was an example that was fresh in my mind,” USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “From my standpoint it’s about as upsetting loss that we’ve had in this building. I told the players that’s on me, that’s on us. It was gross in every way.”
Women of Troy led most of the way with Dunn and freshmen Jazzy Davidson both scoring in double digits, 12 and 10, respectively at intermission while leading 37-21.
Women of Troy had a stretch in the first half with their largest lead at 17 before the Ducks constructed a couple of runs in the second half to begin chipping away gradually in the third quarter that forced coach Gottlieb into calling a quick timeout.
“I had to use a couple timeouts that I didn’t have at the end,” coach Gottlieb said. “I thought that we were not disciplined enough on the offensive end, which allowed them to play in transition. They’re really good in transition.”
Once the momentum seemed to shift towards Oregon, USC went cold turkey from the field. Davidson whom finished with a double-double, 14 points and 13 rebounds plus five assists, shot 1-of-9 in the second half.
“From the very beginning, we weren’t hitting as many shots as we wanted to and then we started to heat up, Dunn said. “But I think it was our energy with each other, like the more that we play with each other, the more we read the ball and the way we dictate the other team. I think that was what we needed to make sure that we were doing in the second half, just slow down and make sure that we were doing the right stuff and not just jacking up anything.”
Women of Troy were dominated by the Ducks in the fourth quarter despite entering up 13 points. Davidson wasn’t able to have a heroic nite for her team when they needed a basket as Oregon swarmed her and her teammates to force them into contested shots.
“I think if that’s one thing that I’ve learned is there’s ups and downs of basketball and this is a part of basketball and you just kind of have to do whatever it takes to fix it, Londynn Jones said. “I mean it’s going to be game by game. This is an amazing conference. We have another good team coming up that we have to pay focus for. So you can only dwell on it so long. But the practices that we do have, we do have to really lock in to what it is that the coaches are we have to buy in to what the coaches need us to buy into. So from my perspective, it’s really just locking in to what’s being asked and doing anything that I possibly can to do what’s being asked, but this is a part of basketball, so we just kind of have to figure it out, feel it, go through every emotion of it, and come out stronger.”
Oregon tallied up 50 points in the second half and Ehis Etute led the Ducks with 17 points, while Katie Fiso added 14. Ari Long sank three consecutive 3-pointers, including the go-ahead dagger with 0:31 to play. Oregon finished the game, scoring the final 14 points to steal the victory.
USC (10-5,2-2) travels to take on Minnesota, Sunday while Oregon returns home to host another ranked league opponent, No. 15 Michigan State on Sunday.