Takeaways: Oregon women's basketball gets swept by Beavers for first time since 2017

The Oregon women’s basketball team fell into an early hole against in-state rival Oregon State on Sunday at Matthew Knight Arena, and ultimately couldn’t claw all the way back in a back-and-forth, 64-60 loss to the No. 18 Beavers.

After a 62-41 loss to the Beavers in Corvallis on New Year’s Eve, the Ducks have lost each of the regular season matchups to their rivals for the first time since the 2016-17 season.

The loss also drops the Ducks below .500 at 11-12 and 2-8 in Pac-12 play. It’s the furthest in the season Oregon has been under .500 since the 2014-15 season.

'We’re disappointed that we lost to the Beavers'

“I’m a positive guy,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said after the loss. “Our kids have good character. They’re still working hard. They get along, they have fun. We’re just a little bit shy right now on getting enough contributions from enough people. But the attitude’s been great, and I think they saw tonight, this will encourage us as much as it will discourage us. We’re disappointed that we lost to the Beavers, but we have to feel encouraged that the next one will be different.”

The Ducks erased a 13-point deficit in the first half, slowly but surely, and eventually tied the game at 41-41 a minute into the fourth quarter after a Phillipina Kyei layup.

The entire fourth quarter went back-and-forth with both teams scoring over 20 in the frame. The difference came down to a pair of Oregon State role players hitting some clutch shots late in Lily Hansford and Timea Gardiner.

Hansford didn’t have a point through the first three quarters but scored on a 4-point play and then hit two more 3-pointers in the fourth. Gardiner, who scored nine points in the first quarter, scored a team-high 19 points off the bench.

Those two and the rest of the OSU bench scored 34 points to Oregon’s 11 bench points.

Phillipina Kyei, Chance Gray and Grace VanSlooten lead Oregon's scoring effort

The Ducks’ three leaders all season long – Kyei, Chance Gray, and Grace VanSlooten – combined to score 45 of Oregon’s 60 points. No other player had more than four points.

Kyei was especially dominant against a premier post in OSU’s Raegan Beers. The junior had 16 points and 18 boards to counter Beers’ 14 points and 16 rebounds.

But without Sofia Bell, who was in a boot and not dressed after suffering an injury against Utah, the Ducks did not have enough to counter OSU’s more balanced roster.

“I’m just really disappointed for our team,” Graves said. “I thought we played a really good basketball game. We played really hard tonight. We gave ourselves a chance to win against a good team and we fell just a little bit short. I’m really proud of the effort. I keep believing that good things are going to happen to this group.”

What's next for the Ducks?

With matchups against four more ranked foes in a row and just eight games left in the regular season, Graves was adamant the Ducks can find ways to win and build for the future.

The next such trip will be in the mountains against No. 6 Colorado and No. 20 Utah next weekend.

“I haven’t been in this position in a long time,” Graves said. “We built something pretty special and we kind of let that go – and there are a lot of different reasons. We’re still a young team, we’ve had some injuries … we’re still working to win this year. But I’m confident we’ll get the program back to where we want it to be.”

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: OSU sweeps Ducks for first time since 2017