Cougs travel to face Ducks, Beavers
Women’s basketball is looking for its first win against top 25 team
The Cougars play the Ducks at 8 p.m. Friday at Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene.
February 28, 2020
The WSU women’s basketball team is on the road in Oregon to face off against the No. 3 University of Oregon Ducks and the No. 17 Oregon State University Beavers.
The Cougars (11-17, 4-12) are in the middle of a five-game losing streak and haven’t won since the comeback victory over Colorado on Feb. 7.
WSU is moving in the right direction whether they win or lose, senior guard Chanelle Molina said.
“It’s a never-ending process of learning and growing as team,” Molina said. “[The locker room] always stays positive and that’s what keeps us going.”
WSU faces two ranked teams this weekend and with the loss against No. 8 UCLA last week they fell to 0-12 against teams ranked in the top 25.
Every game is a battle because of the different options each team has, Molina said.
“You can’t just shut down one person or the other players will go off,” Molina said. “It comes down to defensive execution.”
The Cougars open the weekend against the Ducks (26-2, 15-1) on Friday. Oregon is led by legendary senior guard Sabrina Ionescu.
Ionescu averages 17.3 points per game, 8.9 assists per game, and 8.8 rebounds per game. She recently became the first ever college basketball player to total 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists in a collegiate career.
The Ducks have won 14 straight games and have an average margin of victory of 19 points in these games. Their last lost was to Arizona State University on Jan. 10.
On Sunday, the Cougars face off with the Beavers (20-8, 8-8). Oregon State has lost four of its last five games.
The Beavers are led by redshirt junior guard Destiny Slocum and senior guard Mikayla Pivec. Slocum is averaging 15.1 points per game and excels from beyond the arc as she shoots 37.7 percent.
Pivec averages 15 points and makes a major contribution on the glass averaging 9.5 rebounds per game with 3.5 of those being offensive rebounds.
The Cougars play the Ducks at 8 p.m. Friday at Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene. They will head north to Corvallis to face the Beavers at noon Sunday at Gill Coliseum. Both games can be viewed on the Pac-12 Networks.
