When the Long Beach State women’s basketball team opens the Women’s National Invitation Tournament against Oregon on Thursday, they will attempt to pick up their first postseason win in 16 years.
LBSU’s (24-8, 12-4) last win in the WNIT came on March 18, 2000 against Saint Mary’s. If the 49ers want to break a three-game losing streak in the tournament, they will have to break an even longer losing streak in matchups against Oregon.
The all-time series between the Ducks and 49ers is tied at five, but their last five meetings have all gone to Oregon. However, the Ducks have lost three straight games heading into Thursday’s matchup, including a loss in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament to Arizona. They finished the season with an overall record of 20-10 and 9-9 in conference.
Oregon will be without their top scorer, senior forward Jillian Alleyne, who’s out of action after suffering an ACL injury against USC on Feb. 21.
Despite the loss of their star player, LBSU head coach Jody Wynn said that the Ducks are still a formidable team.
“[Oregon is] missing [Alleyne] so they’re feeding a lot off their three-point play and their guard play right now,” Wynn said. “They have four [players] that shoot 40 and 44 percent from the three-point line.”
The Ducks are the top three point shooting within the Pac-12, shooting 40.6 percent from behind the arc and average 7.6 three-pointers a game.
Their top three point shooter is 5-foot-9-inch sophomore guard Lexi Bando, who made a team-high 54 three pointers this year and leads the Ducks with a 42.5 shooting percentage from long distance.
Then there is the Ducks’ current top scorer, guard Lexi Petersen. The 5-foot-11-inch senior is averaging 13.1 ppg and is the second best three-point shooter in the team, shooting 42.4 percent from three.
Oregon is also the top overall shooting team in the Pac-12, shooting 46.4 percent from the field. The Ducks have the second best scoring offense in the conference, averaging 72.6 ppg, and are second in assists, picking up an average of 15.5 a game.
Even though Oregon can put up big offensive numbers, Wynn says that the team is focusing on improving its game so it can be ready for Oregon and for a long run in the tournament.
“I think it’s really important that we defend better, that we communicate better, that we get back in transition better and we just got to take care of the ball and rebound,” Wynn said. “…Urgency, communication, playing with poise [and] under pressure are things that we talked about with our team and we worked on the past two days in practice.”
Wynn compares the preparation to this game similar to a preseason game, but the exception being that the team is coming in with a postseason mentality.
“It’s like the preseason, as far as our preparation,” Wynn said. “[Oregon] hasn’t seen us play live, we haven’t seen them play live. Both teams are going to watch a lot of game film on each other and see tendencies in what they’re trying to do.”
The 49ers look to get past Oregon on Thursday at 6 p.m. inside the Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, Oregon.