Duck rally falls short, Utah Tech downs them for fourth loss of season

SAINT GEORGE, Utah —  On Tuesday afternoon, the Oregon Ducks (8-4) dropped their first game at the Trailblazer Classic to the Utah Tech Trailblazers (7-4) 92-86 behind some incredibly hot shooting, as the Trailblazers finished the game 21-for-31 from three.

Oregon started the game well, with a nice pick-and-roll between Chance Gray and Phillipina Kyei leading to an easy layup for their starting center for the game’s first points.

After that though, it was pretty much all Utah Tech throughout the rest of the first half. The Trailblazers shot 12-for-15 from behind the arc.

Their five-out offense presented the Ducks with similar problems that they faced in their blowout loss to Santa Clara. With shooters all over the floor, they were able to pull Oregon’s slower-footed bigs out to the perimeter which gave them easy driving lanes and plenty of wide-open looks from long range.

The Ducks shot the ball well in the first half, going 5-of-11 from deep, but that was nowhere near enough to keep up with the flamethrowers that the Trailblazers brought.

Despite Oregon’s size advantage, they couldn’t even build a lead by getting to the hoop, as both teams finished the first half with 18 points in the paint. Utah Tech was able to keep pace by opening up driving lanes with their spacing, forcing Oregon’s guards to try to defend one-on-one at the rim.

Oregon played much better in the second half, outscoring Utah Tech 48-37, but in the end, the Trailblazers were just able to hold on to get the upset victory.

Late in the first half, head coach, Kelly Graves switched the Ducks into a zone defense that paid massive dividends in the third quarter, as Oregon limited the Trailblazers to only 14 points on 3-of-9 shooting from three in the quarter.

This enabled Oregon to cut the lead down to 69-64 heading into the fourth quarter. Three consecutive triples from Gray helped to finish the quarter on an 11-1 run.

The Ducks’ defense came out hungry to start the fourth quarter, forcing multiple shot clock violations while playing strong team defense. With 4:50 left in the game, Grace VanSlooten hit a layup to get the Utah Tech lead down to one point for the first time since the 3:02 mark of the first quarter.

Every time the Ducks looked poised to take the lead, Utah Tech answered with a three to keep the game just out of reach.

After Utah Tech got their lead back up to eight points with 2:18 to go, Ula Chamberlin helped answer by knocking down a mid-range jumper and a three-pointer following a steal from Sofia Bell to cut the lead back down to three with 47 seconds remaining. This gave Oregon their best chance to tie the game with a Priscilla Williams three with 30 seconds to go, but a miss gave Utah Tech the ball back, forcing Oregon to foul.

“If we had to do it over again, maybe I stop and call a timeout, and we set something up right there,” Graves said of the fastbreak possession that led to the Williams three.

Gray stole the inbounds pass with 27 seconds remaining, and after a timeout, VanSlooten was given a chance to isolate at the elbow but had her layup blocked, forcing Oregon to again foul.

After that, the Ducks had to try to play the free throw game, but Utah Tech was able to knock down 3-of-4 free throws to keep the game out of reach and seal the victory.

“Well, the three-point line. You make 21 threes, that’s 63 points from the three-point line,” said Graves after the game. “The way we play we just can’t make that up.”

Despite Oregon shooting well from behind the arc, finishing the game with a season's best 10-of-22 distance shooting including a 6-for-10 performance from Gray, Utah Tech more than doubled that

number with their 21 threes, the second most in their program history.

“[Nicole Willardson] there late in the game hit a couple of big ones that we weren’t expecting, and that’s on us,” Graves said of Willardson’s two late three-pointers. “The others were shooting it so well, we told Philly [Kyei] in those possessions, ‘Hey, just protect the rim, protect the rim.’ And that kid stepped out and hit two in a row, so you got to give her credit.”

“It’s too bad, 'cause we wasted a pretty good offensive effort.”

The Ducks’ final game at the Trailblazer classic will be on Thursday against the Oklahoma State Cowboys at 1 PM. They begin conference play at Oregon State on New Year’s Eve.