Phillipina Kyei’s big career day leads Oregon women’s basketball past Portland State
Friday night, Phillipina Kyei notched several career-highs en route to a home win at Matthew Knight Arena. In less than 24 hours against Portland State Saturday, Kyei repeated the feat, scoring a new career-high 20 points to go along with 18 rebounds to lead the Oregon women’s basketball team past Portland State, 65-54.
Kyei also recorded career-highs in field goal makes with nine and attempts with 14.
“When she plays like that, we’re a different team,” Oregon coach Kelly Graves said. “She played really well tonight.”
The Ducks (6-3) got off to a bit of a lethargic start, and trailed the Vikings at the half, 23-22. But led by their 6-foot-8 center in the low block, the Ducks stayed in the game and eventually took off in the third quarter to build up a lead they would never relinquish.
Kyei was the only Duck to hit more than one shot in the first half.
“She came off aggressive right from the jump,” Oregon forward Grace VanSlooten said. “She was our spark when things weren’t going well in the first half. She just kept going strong, and we kept giving her the ball. She had a great game.”
After a tough first half, the Ducks’ other leading contributors finally came through. VanSlooten had a big third quarter, hitting five shots and ending the game with 18 points. Chance Gray, in an admittedly bad shooting slump, put the game away late with a barrage of 3-pointers. She finished the game shooting 5-for-12 from 3 with 15 points.
“That lid that was on the rim, somehow broke,” Graves said. “(Gray) needed that, and so did we. It’s been a struggle from the 3-point line. It was nice to see her hit a couple. Hopefully it will propel us for later games.”
The Ducks will get a whole day off before returning to Matthew Knight Arena against Southern at 7 p.m. on Monday.
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: Phillipina Kyei leads Oregon women’s basketball past Portland State
