Tag: Kelly Graves

New player poll from The Athletic paints Oregon’s Kelly Graves in a poor light

A mass exodus and player polls paint Oregon’s Kelly Graves in a poor light.

For the second year in a row, Oregon Ducks women’s basketball has been sent into a tailspin at the start of the offseason.

On Wednesday morning, three Ducks entered the transfer portal. Two of them were the team’s best players, leaving the roster full of unknowns.

The next step for Oregon will be trying to replace those players with transfer additions of its own, but that may be tough for head coach Kelly Graves. In a straw poll by the Athletic, players around the country were asked which coach they’d like to play for least, and Graves ranked second.

The champion of that list was, unsurprisingly, LSU’s Kim Mulkey, who is infamous for her harsh words and attitude toward players. Mulkey received 32 of the 48 votes, while Graves received seven votes. That seems small in comparison, but second place is second place, especially on a list like that.

Not long ago, Graves’ Ducks were at the top of the basketball world, due in part to his aptitude for talent acquisition. In 2020, Oregon was in the fast lane on the road to a national championship before the tournament was canceled due to COVID-19. On that team were several WNBA-caliber talents, none greater than Sabrina Ionescu, who was one of the best women’s college basketball players ever, and has gone on to greater heights as the point guard for the New York Liberty.

Three years later the narrative has flipped. Throughout the past season, there was a growing sentiment among fans that Graves’ chair should be heating up. That sentiment was fueled by the Ducks’ 14-game losing streak to end the season — the longest losing streak in program history.

The Ducks need a roster overhaul, but it will be hard to bring in elite players with the program led by one of the coaches players would like to play for the least. And if Graves can’t figure out how to bring in a talented team, he will be on the hot seat.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

Oregon women’s basketball roster loses three big pieces to transfer portal

Grace VanSlooten, Chance Gray and Kennedy Basham all leave the Oregon programs and enter the transfer portal.

The Oregon Ducks women’s basketball team didn’t have the best of seasons, and this might make things worse before they get better.

Head coach Kelly Graves just saw three of his top players leave and enter the transfer portal in one day as forwards Grace VanSlooten and Kennedy Basham as well as shooting guard Chance Gray have all decided to go play elsewhere.

This was just a few days after guard Priscilla Williams announced her intentions to enter the portal.

That leaves four huge holes Graves will have to fill before next season and no doubt he will be perusing the portal the best he can in this new world of college athletics.

VanSlooten came to Oregon as a five-star recruit from Toledo, Ohio where she averaged 14.1 points and 6.4 rebounds in her two seasons. She was an All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention.

Gray was the No. 7 player in the nation when she committed to Oregon from Cincinnati. In her two years as a Duck, she averaged 12 point a game and was named to the All-Pac-12 Freshman team in 2022-23. She made 115 three-pointers last season.

Basham was one of the top post players to come out of high school when she committed to Oregon, but she suffered a knee injury that slowed her in her freshman season. In her two years, Basham played in 47 games, averaging 3.5 points and 2.8 rebounds a game.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

Point guard and defensive specialist Elisa Mevius joins Ducks

Oregon women’s basketball gained a defensive specialist out of the MAAC with Siena’s Elisa Mevius joining Kelly Graves’ team.

The Oregon Ducks women’s basketball team will be joining the  Big Ten Conference with a new point guard.

Elisa Mevius, who will be a junior for the 2024-25 season, has transferred to Oregon from Siena College in Loudonville, NY.  Siena is far from Oregon, but Mevius is used to playing far from home as she is from Rendsburg, Germany.

Oregon has had some good luck with players from Germany as the Sabally sisters, Satou and Nyara, hail from that country.

As for Mevius, she is a defensive specialist. She was named the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year. Mevius set the MAAC single-season record with 135 steals. She also averaged 12 points, 6.8 rebounds and 5.1 assists a game for the Saints this past season.

Point guard Peyton Scott out for the season with knee injury

Oregon point guard Peyton Scott suffered a season-ending injury Monday night.

Oregon Ducks’ guard Peyton Scott will miss the remainder of the 2023-24 season after suffering a knee injury in Monday’s game against Northern Arizona, head women’s basketball coach Kelly Graves announced Wednesday.

The Oregon point guard was chasing down a loose ball early in the season opener with the Lumberjacks. Her knee twisted as Scott went down to the floor where she was later helped off.

A native of Lynchburg, Ohio, Scott spent four seasons at Miami (Ohio), leaving as the program’s No. 4 all-time scorer with 1,871 points. She earned all-MAC recognition four times, including second-team honors in back-to-back seasons (2020-21, 2021-22). Scott is fourth in Redhawks’ history with 36 20-point scoring efforts and 676 career-made field goals.

She’ll likely be able to receive a medical redshirt and return to the Duck program for 2024-25.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

WBB Recap: Ducks defense stops Lumberjacks in their tracks

Oregon began the women’s basketball season on a good note with an 81-48 win over Northern Arizona.

Oregon Ducks women’s basketball fans have to remember it’s just Nov. 6 and this is far from a finished product. The Ducks defense was sound and the offense was good enough, with some flashes of brilliance, as Oregon handed Northern Arizona an 81-48 loss inside Matthew Knight Arena.

Head coach Kelly Graves is working with almost a brand new roster with just four returners off of last year’s squad, so he’ll be mixing and matching lineups for quite a while.

Players such as Chance Gray and Grace VanSlooten will see the majority of the playing time. The only question will be who plays around them for the most amount of time. Freshman Sofia Bell out of Portland and redshirt freshman Sammie Wagner both made an impression as both played well.

Getting to know Kelly Graves’ Oregon Ducks ahead of the 2023 season tip-off

Oregon women’s basketball is led by three sophomores and they are surrounded with a Top 5 recruiting class for the 2023-24 season.

The Oregon Ducks women’s basketball program might still be haunted by that 2020 season when a national championship was in their grasp before the pandemic hit.

Kelly Graves has brought in great recruiting classes since but hasn’t been able to find the same success he enjoyed when Sabrina Ionescu was playing. Oregon might still be a year or two away from seriously contending to make a deep run in March, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make some noise in the meantime.

In the last season of the Pac-12, the conference schedule is a huge gauntlet and the Ducks will have to maneuver their way through. The talent is there to beat anybody. The big question surrounding this team is how quickly they develop chemistry and put it to good use on the floor.

Oregon has three tremendous sophomores and they have a Top 5 recruiting class to play with. If the Ducks gel as a team, they will finish a lot higher than predicted.

Kelly Graves hires Tre Simmons as new Oregon basketball assistant coach

Kelly Graves hires Tre Simmons as new Oregon basketball assistant coach

The Oregon Ducks are adding a new member to the coaching staff ahead of the 2023-24 season, announcing the hiring of Tre Simmons on Tuesday afternoon.

Simmons is a former Washington standout and a 14-year professional player overseas. For the Huskies, Simmons was an All-Pac-10 First Team selection in 2004-05.

“Throughout his entire collegiate and professional career, Tre has exemplified leadership,” head coach Kelly Graves said, via a press release from the university. “His energy and passion are contagious, and our team will love being around him. Tre has an innate ability to connect with people. That, in addition to his deep knowledge and love for the game, make him a tremendous coach and an ideal fit for our program.”

The hiring comes after Oregon saw assistant coach Sadie Edwards depart to take a spot on the Baylor Bears coaching staff last week.

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

Oregon women’s basketball schedules home-and-home with Baylor

Oregon women’s basketball schedules a home-and-home contract with Baylor beginning this coming season.

Kelly Graves has always been aggressive when it comes to scheduling and he has continued that tradition by scheduling a former national champion.

Oregon and Baylor have agreed to a home-and-home series beginning with the upcoming 2023-24 season Graves announced Monday.

The Ducks and Bears will meet on Dec. 3 at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas, while Baylor will visit Matthew Knight Arena during the 2024-25 season.

“We are always looking to build a tough non-conference schedule and Baylor will be a marquee non-con opponent for us,” Graves said. “A matchup against such a quality program will help us prepare for the gauntlet of the Pac-12 schedule, and it will be good for our young team to take a great opponent in a tough environment.”

December’s matchup will be the first since the teams met in the 2019 NCAA Final Four in which Baylor, then ranked as the nation’s No. 1 team, came away with a 72-67 victory in Tampa, Fla. The Bears lead the all-time series 4-0, with a 1-0 home record and a 1-0 record in Eugene.

Baylor has qualified for 19 straight NCAA Tournaments, the fifth-longest active streak in the country, and advanced to the Second Round in last year’s tournament. The Bears have won three national titles (2005, 2012, 2019) to go with 15 Sweet 16 appearances.

But the Bears haven’t been quite the same after coach Kim Mulkey left for LSU, which just won last year’s national title. Baylor finished the 2022-23 season with a 20-13 record.

4-star point guard Katie Fiso commits to Oregon

4-star recruit and Class of ’24 point guard Katie Fiso out of Seattle has committed to Kelly Graves and the Ducks women’s basketball team.

The Oregon Ducks football team has had a history of grabbing talent out of Washington’s backyard.

Now it’s the women’s basketball program’s turn.

Kelly Graves and his Duck team received a verbal commit from 4-star point guard Katie Fiso out of Garfield High School in Seattle.

Fiso averaged 22 points a game last season as she led Garfield to its third straight state championship on the 3A level. She’s also the first commit out of the Class of 2024 for the Ducks.

Nearly every school on the West Coast was recruiting Fiso, including Oregon State, UCLA, USC, and California.

With the departures of Te-Hina Paopao and Endyia Rogers, the Ducks are still in search of a pure point guard and they hope Fiso fits the bill.

 

Former North Alabama guard announces transfer to Oregon

Former North Alabama and defensive specialist guard Skyler Gill has announced her transfer into the Oregon women’s basketball program.

Former North Alabama guard Skyler Gill has announced via Twitter that she has committed to Oregon for the 2023-24 season.

The 5-foot-11 guard from Wichita, Kansas is a defensive specialist while scoring nearly 11 points per game and eight rebounds for the Lions. Gill has been named the Atlantic Sun Conference Defensive Player of the Year two straight times.

Gill is the fourth player to come out of the portal and land in Eugene in this offseason as she joins former Liberty guard Kennedi Williams, former Miami University guard Peyton Scott and former USF guard Priscilla Williams to be added to the Ducks roster.

After missing the NCAA tournament last season and seeing numerous players leave Oregon via the portal, Ducks coach Kelly Graves is trying to remake the roster in order to compete in a tough Pac-12 Conference and reach March Madness once again.

Oregon is bringing in a Top 10 recruiting class and the Ducks still have three more scholarship spots remaining.