PULLMAN, Wash - When Pac-10 play began for Oregon this season, it provided no indication of how brutal the road would be for the Ducks.
The first conference road game was Dec. 29, and Oregon posted a solid four-point win over Oregon State in Corvallis. The Ducks improved to 7-5 for the season.
Since then, Oregon has won just three times, dropping to 10-15 overall and 4-10 in Pac-10 games entering today's 2 p.m. tip at Washington State. The Ducks have lost seven straight overall, and seven straight on the road since beating OSU. It's the second-longest road losing streak in school history, but never before has a UO women's team lost 10 road games in a season, as this group has.
There is light at today's end of the tunnel: the Cougars are 4-20 this season, and 1-12 in conference play. But they're coming off their first Pac-10 win of the season, Friday over Oregon State. And with Oregon having lost both blowouts and squeakers in the past month, there's no such thing as a sure thing for the Ducks.
"It's obviously frustrating," UO freshman post Nicole Canepa said. "We're trying to figure out what the heck we need to do to get a win."
They thought they had it figured out Friday at Washington. Oregon led nearly the entire second half, until the Huskies took the lead for good on a three-pointer with 1:26 left. The Ducks had two chances to win in the final 12 seconds, but didn't get a shot off either time and lost by one.
On the first chance, the Ducks took advantage of Washington's defensive switching and got guard Taylor Lilley matched up with a forward. She drove into the lane, which was supposed to be open. But freshman forward Ellyce Ironmonger was slow to clear out, and her defender was there to draw a charge by Lilley.
After two missed free throws by UW, the Ducks had another chance to win with 6.3 seconds remaining. It was the second straight road game in which Oregon had the ball last in a one-point game. In both cases, rather than leading scorer Lilley, point guard Tamika Nurse got the ball and was unable to convert. This time, Nurse was trapped in the offensive end and didn't even get a pass off in time.
"She's quick enough to get down there, and then if she doesn't have anything Micaela (Cocks) and I will be on the three-point line and she can toss it out," Lilley said. "But it didn't work out that way."
The game began to turn minutes earlier, after the Ducks took a 55-48 lead. Canepa missed two free throws, and UW answered with a three-point play. Oregon's next seven possessions included two turnovers, three open shots that missed, and three more missed free throws. Washington mounted a 9-1 run to tie the score.
"For 35 minutes, we got the rebounds, we got the loose ball — we were all over the floor," UO coach Bev Smith said. "And then all the sudden we're a little bit hesitant. They picked up the loose ball, they got the rebounds, they were the aggressor. That changes the whole feeling of the game, and you could feel it slipping away."
The offensive struggles are nothing new for Oregon, and let another solid defensive effort go to waste. The Huskies did shoot 46.2 percent, but the Ducks' switch to a zone in the second half caused UW's shooting to fall from 50 percent before halftime to 42.3 after.
"I thought we were going really hard," Canepa said. "You can't not let a team score. They got open looks sometimes. But we were going really hard. We were boxing out. They got some rebounds, but I thought we took it to them on defense."
In the Cougars, Oregon is about to take on the Pac-10's lowest scoring team, at fewer than 52 points per game. And though WSU has gotten a boost in the post of late from the return of leading rebounder Ebonee Coates, the Cougars allow nearly 70 points per game, most in the conference.
"Hopefully we can get over the hump and get on a streak again," Lilley said. "A winning streak."