Aggie women suffer first loss in blowout loss to No. 3 Oregon
No. 3 ranked Oregon came to Logan as the highest-ranked team to ever face the Utah State, and they certainly looked the part in a wire-to-wire blowout victory over the Aggies, 88-58. The game pushes USU to 2-1 on the season, and Oregon to 3-0.
Sophomore forward Shannon Dufficy chipped in a double-double for USU, finishing the contest with 14 points and 12 rebounds. On the Oregon side, junior forward Ruthy Hebard had a game-high 10 free throw attempts and makes en route to a 20 point outing. Another Duck, last year’s Pac-12 Player of the Year Sabrina Ionescu, also had a solid game, posting a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds.
It didn’t take long for the Ducks to flash their prolific offense, and they finished the first half shooting better than 60% from the floor and 53% from behind the three point arc. Perhaps even more impressive was their defense, implementing a 3-2 zone early in the first quarter which, complimented by their considerable height advantage, frustrated the Aggies throughout the game and limited them to just 29 first half points on 40% shooting from the floor.
“They play this long zone with a front wall on it, and we didn’t make our adjustments in that,” said Utah State head coach Jerry Finkbeiner of Oregon’s defense.
The second half was much less lopsided than the first, and Utah State finished the game better than they started it, making four of their nine threes in the half, and finishing with a tally of seven on the game, a statistic which didn’t escape Finkbeiner.
“An incredible stat to end the game: they didn’t make any more threes than we did,” Finkbeiner said. “We actually shot better from the three than they did.”
While never happy with a loss, Finkbeiner did see some encouraging signs in the game, repeatedly saying that “shock and awe” on his team’s part was a major factor in the loss, more so than any technical fault, and pointed out that Oregon had to shift their defensive scheme early because of USU’s success against their man defense.
“We were more in our heads, thinking they are the third team in the nation, we’re going to get blocked, or we are going to miss against them,” Dufficy concurred. “It was just more of a mental thing.”
Utah State hopes to shake off this defeat and get back to their winning ways Tuesday at 7 p.m. when they face in-state rival BYU at home in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.