Taylor Lilley couldn't do it alone.
She tried to. Gave it a heck of a shot. But she couldn't do it alone.
Not with Oregon unable to establish a post presence, and unable to deal with Arizona State's perimeter pressure. Not with two starting forwards combining for zero points, and the two point guards combining for 13 turnovers.
All that came against Arizona State, so it was not entirely unexpected. But any momentum the Ducks gained by winning the Civil War last week appeared to slip away in Thursday's 63-50 loss to the Sun Devils before 2,732 in McArthur Court.
Lilley scored 22 points, her third straight game with 20 or more and fourth straight as Oregon's leading scorer. Her basket pulled the Ducks within two at 48-46, and she scored their ensuing field goal, but in between ASU ripped off a 13-0 run to put the game away.
"Her points are very important to us, and any time we can get her 20 points that's fantastic," UO coach Bev Smith said. "However, we just need another person or a third person at least close to double figures, and we didn't get that."
Tamika Nurse added nine points off the bench for Oregon (7-6, 1-1 Pac-10). But she was one of three players with five or more turnovers. And starting forwards Ellyce Ironmonger and Victoria Kenyon were held scoreless on four field-goal attempts.
Lilley, recovered from lower leg pain after a 10-day break before conference play began last week, scored Oregon's first six points on two three-pointers. She opened the second half scoring eight of the Ducks' first nine, giving them a 37-36 lead.
But with 5:11 left and ASU ahead 48-46, Lilley missed the front end of a one-and-one situation, and Dymond Simon quickly converted a layin on the other end to spark the 13-point run by the Sun Devils (9-5, 3-0). The Ducks had four turnovers during that stretch and missed no less than three layins.
"The effort was the same," Ironmonger said, comparing Thursday's game with the 76-72 win at Oregon State on Saturday. "We kept fighting the whole way through. But our poise and composure wasn't the same. We didn't take care of the ball well enough like we did last week, which was the main factor."
Ironmonger helped keep the game close with her post defense for most of the night, but down the stretch the Ducks were unable to keep ASU's Lauren Lacey off the offensive glass, as she twice put back missed layups during the game-clinching run. Oregon also looked to get Ironmonger offensive looks from the outside, believing the Sun Devils would leave her open, but the Ducks' second-leading scorer managed just four shots.
"We had some good looks, but they just weren't going down for us," Lilley said. "If we'd had a little bit more of an inside presence, it would have been a closer game at least."
Lilley had a reverse layin to open the second half and cut into a 31-28 lead for Arizona State. She added a jumper on the next possession, and later scored on two backdoor cuts to put Oregon up 37-36. But the Ducks then committed seven turnovers in their next nine possessions. Build a lead there, and the Sun Devils' late run might not have been so decisive.
"When we were aggressive I think it took the wind out of their sails a little bit," UO wing Kaela Chapdelaine said. "But we needed to do that for 40 minutes."
And the Ducks needed more than just Lilley, who sometimes seemed like their first and only scoring option.
"Early on, it seemed that way, everything was going through her," ASU guard Briann January said. "The ball had to go through her hands. We recognized that, and once we adjusted we kind of figured things out."
Even despite the unbalanced scoring load for Lilley, the Ducks very much had a chance to win this one. But it slipped away, further still with every errant pass Oregon unleashed.
"Possessions are everything, when it comes down it," Lilley said.
"And we didn't get it done tonight."