Oregon’s stars go cold as Ducks fall in Seattle 

SEATTLE — Kelly Graves has coached enough basketball in his career to know games like Sunday are going to happen. 

The Ducks couldn’t shoot. They couldn’t make plays down the stretch and, despite erasing a 15-point deficit, they couldn’t hold on to upset No. 25 Washington in Seattle for the first time since 2022. 

Bad games happen, Graves said, and there’s not much sense in making any snap judgments off a bad night. 

Still, knowing that it happens won’t make digesting the film from Oregon’s 51-43 loss any easier. 

“I’ll watch it on the toilet,” Graves said, “so I can puke.” 

Where to start? 

Well, Graves kept pointing to the stat sheet. Oregon (18-9, 6-8 Big Ten) shot 31%, hit just one three-pointer, turned the ball over 18 times and saw its primary scorers miss so often they might as well been aiming for the neighboring lake. 

Katie Fiso was 2-of-13, Mia Jacobs 1-of-11, Sophia Bell 1-of-6 and Ehis Etute was 2-of-9. 

The poor shooting was the catalyst in Oregon falling behind 15 points in the first quarter – a drought that didn’t seem to matter much in the second quarter when Oregon held UW (19-7, 9-6 Big Ten) scoreless for an 8-minute stretch that allowed the Ducks back into the game. 

“The bench came in and did a good job,” Graves said. “We sent a message. We had four bench kids in there. They didn’t really chip into the lead a ton, but what they did was stabilize us a little bit until we came back with our main kids and made a move.” 

Oregon led 28-27 going into halftime. Then the moves stopped in the second half as the Ducks managed to hit just four shots.

Still, Washington never ran away with it — the Ducks forced 21 turnovers and got the game to within two points with 3:47 to play on a Sarah Rambus put back. 

But it was Oregon’s last bucket of the game, as the Ducks closed by missing their final seven shots. 

“Seriously, guys, I thought this was one of our best defensive games that we’ve had — and unfortunately it was all for naught,” Graves said. “I thought we executed some pretty good shots. I won’t name names, but you guys saw how wide open it was. 

“I get it, you’re not going to make them all. But how about some?” 

The loss was Oregon’s second in a row and drops the Ducks below Illinois to 11th in conference standings. 

The good news? The Ducks still have four games left to rediscover their scoring touch. And for the sake of the rivalry, Oregon will get another crack at the Huskies to close out the regular season in Eugene. 

But there are some things to attend to before that March 1 date with revenge. There’s Thursday’s home date with Nebraska. There’s also that film to get through. 

“It’ll be painful,” Graves said. “But, again, you’re just not going to win games with these kind of numbers.”