The Oregon Ducks had the three best players on the floor and even as they were out-played and out-coached in spurts by Rice, the talent gap eventually shined through.
Endyia Rogers scored 19 points and Te-Hina Paopao and Grace VanSlooten each added 17 to carry the top-seeded Ducks to a 78-53 win over the Owls in the second round of the WNIT Monday night at Matthew Knight Arena.
Rogers (8 of 11), Paopao (6 of 11) and VanSlooten (6 of 11) combined to make 20 of 33 shots from the field, while the rest of the roster combined to make just 9 of 29 for the Ducks (19-14), who advanced to face San Diego in the Super 16 Thursday at 6 p.m.
Oregon held Rice to a season-low 27.4% shooting, including 21.6% in the second half, and forced eight of nine turnovers after the break.
“I thought a whole different team in the second half,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said. “I thought the defense is what did it early, especially in that third quarter. I challenged a couple of players and it worked. Kind of disappointed we kind of came out a little lethargic, just we weren’t making anything happen defensively and that was the game plan going in, to put more pressure on these guys. But we got the message ultimately.”
Phillipina Kyei finished with nine points, 15 rebounds and a career-high eight blocks — the most by a UO player since Jenny Mowe on Dec. 13, 1999. The sophomore doubled her previous career best and became the 15th player to record at least eight blocks in a Division I women’s basketball game this season.
“Coach always told me to protect the paint,” Kyei said. “So I think did a good job of that and I’m going to do more of that. It started off one block and then the energy just kept going from there.”
Paopao, who also had seven rebounds and five assists, scored 15 of her points in the first half for Oregon, which took control quickly with an early 11-3 lead. The Ducks then fired a series of quick shots, but went 2 of 11 with five misses from three-point range, allowing the Owls to inch back to within 18-17 heading into the second quarter.
“I thought in the first quarter, quite frankly we settled too much for quick threes,” Graves said. “We took 10 threes in that first quarter and that’s too many for anybody really; certainly too many for us.”
Despite shooting 70% from the field in the second quarter, Oregon only won the frame 16-14 because of eight turnovers.
VanSlooten scored 11 points to single-handedly outproduce Rice in third quarter, when the Ducks outscored the Owls 23-9 and forced six turnovers. The freshman opened the second half with an offensive rebound, ripped the ball away from a Rice player immediately after an in-bounds pass, and scored all in the first 90 seconds of the quarter.
“At halftime, Kelly also spoke to me directly and told me that I got to become a different player, so I did,” VanSlooten said. “I had to pick it up. I knew it, everybody else knew it. … I think at halftime Kelly came in and said we need to turn this around. He knew we looked like a different team than we had the past game and we all knew that too.
“I think we went out there and really picked up our defense and that obviously leads to our offense. Once we did that it was smooth sailing from there.”
India Bellamy had nine points and five rebounds to lead Rice (23-9).