Oregon women's basketball sets new program record after losing 12th game in a row
Up six with around three minutes to play, the Oregon women’s basketball team was a few moments away from snapping a historic losing streak, but instead faded down the stretch in a 62-59 loss to Cal Thursday night at Matthew Knight Arena.
The loss is the Ducks’ 12th in a row, a new program record. The previous record for losses in a row of 11 was set in 1993.
How Oregon set a new program loss record
The Ducks (11-19, 2-15 Pac-12), after trailing for a majority of the game, tied it up via a Chance Gray buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of the third frame at 42-42.
Less than a minute later, Oregon took its first lead, and built that lead up to six with about five minutes to go in the game.
Then Cal made its run. The Golden Bears (17-12, 7-10 Pac-12) retook the lead with 2:20 left to play, before Grace VanSlooten tied the game by splitting free throws a few moments later, at 57-57.
The Bears won with free throws late, burying five clutch shots from the line, while Oregon’s Phillipina Kyei missed a pair while the Ducks were down one with 29.4 seconds on the clock. With less than 10 seconds to go and down by three, Gray missed a long ball, and the Ducks dropped their 12th game in a row.
“It’s OK that they make a few in a row, but we didn’t answer during that stretch,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said.
The loss gives Cal a sweep over Oregon for the first time since the 2012-13 season, before Graves became the Ducks’ coach.
Kyei led the Ducks with her conference-leading 21st double-double, hauling in 11 boards and scoring 10 points. Gray scored a team-high 17 points and VanSlooten scored 14. Cal was led by Ioanna Krimili’s 21 points, including four made free throws down the stretch to seal the game.
What's next for the Ducks
Oregon has one more regular season game against Stanford on Saturday at home for senior day. With a loss, the Ducks would tie another program record for conference losses in a season with 16. Oregon is dead-last in the Pac-12 standings, and if form holds, would play a top-18 ranked foe next Wednesday in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas.
The Ducks tip off against the Cardinal at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com and you can follow him on Twitter @AlecDietz.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Pac-12 women's basketball: Oregon Ducks set new program loss record
