Tag: Kelly Graves

6-foot-7 center Kennedy Basham commits to Kelly Graves and Oregon Ducks

6-foot-7 center Kennedy Basham commits to Oregon and coach Kelly Graves for the 2022-23 season.

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Good luck to Pac-12 guards trying to go inside to score against Oregon in the coming years.

The Ducks women’s basketball team just got taller as they secured a commitment from 6-foot-7 center Kennedy Basham out of Arizona.

According to ESPN.com, Basham ranks as the 44th best prospect in the country and the No. 6 post. It helps to know fellow Oregon recruit Jennah Isai, also from Arizona, who has played with Basham on the prep level.

Basham joins one of the best-recruiting classes head coach Kelly Graves has ever assembled at Oregon as she joins not only Isai (No. 35), but guard Chance Gray (No. 7 overall).

Basham will be eligible to play at Oregon for the 2022-23 season where the Ducks could have a front line of 6-foot-5 Nyara Sabally, 6-foot-7 Sedona Prince and 6-foot-8 Phillipina Kyei.

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Oregon women’s basketball to host UConn January 17

Oregon women’s basketball is set to host UConn next season with the Huskies looking for a bit of revenge.

Sometimes these made-for-TV games can be very cool and women’s college basketball does it better than most sports.

On Jan. 17, 2022, which is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Oregon will host Geno Auriemma’s UConn Huskies in what is sure to be one of the highlight contests of the regular season.

In response to the news, Oregon coach Kelly Graves tweeted out the following: “Eugene is gonna be rocking for this game! ESPN game on MLK Day—gonna be special.”

UConn, along with national champion Stanford, is one of, if not THE preeminent power of women’s collegiate hoops. Every Duck fan will remember when a Sabrina-led Oregon team marched into Storrs, Conn, and ended the Huskies’ seven-year home winning streak with the 74-56 victory.

After that game, Auriemma praised the Duck program. “They’re just too good, and their big kids are too good,” he said. “We don’t have anybody at that level. We just don’t.”

Two years later, now they do and it should make for one great game inside Matthew Knight Arena.

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Ducks will open with Oklahoma in the first Women’s Battle 4 Atlantis

Oregon will open up the inaugural Women’s Battle 4 Atlantis with Oklahoma down in the Bahamas this November.

The Bahamas is always a sweet destination place for men’s basketball for their version of the Battle 4 Atlantis. Dana Altman’s team played down there in 2019.

Now it’s the women’s turn.

Kelly Graves will take his Oregon Ducks team down to the Bahamas to compete in the first annual Battle 4 Atlantis women’s tournament this November. The Ducks will open up with Oklahoma on Nov. 20 with the winner playing either South Carolina or Buffalo.

Oregon and Oklahoma have only played twice in their history as the two teams have split their two all-time meetings. Oregon won a 2017 matchup in the PK80 Invitational, 92-74, in Matthew Knight Arena. Oregon dropped the only other meeting between the two schools in 2012 at a nonconference tournament in Hawaii.

The Sooners were 12-12 last season and went 9-8 in Big XII action. They lost in the first round of the conference tournament to rival Oklahoma State. As is widely reported, OU is in the beginning stages of leaving the Big XII and joining the SEC. While it won’t occur next season, the Sooners will most likely jump ship soon after.

Along with the Ducks, Sooners, South Carolina and Buffalo will be UConn, Minnesota, South Florida, and Syracuse, which will make up the top half of the bracket.

Nation’s No. 2 point guard gives Oregon women’s basketball a Chance

Chance Gray, the nation’s No. 2-rated point guard in the Class of 2022, chose Oregon over Ohio State, UCLA, Arizona and others

The commitments keep rolling in for Kelly Graves and his women’s basketball program at Oregon.

Chance Gray, the nation’s No. 2-rated point guard in the Class of 2022 according to ESPN, has selected to spend her college years in Eugene.

The 5-foot-9 Hamilton, Ohio-native from Lakota West High School picked Oregon over the likes of Ohio State, Louisville, UCLA, and Arizona Chance joins Jennah Isai as the second commitment in the ’22 class.

As a junior, Chance proved that she is a major scoring threat by averaging 35 points a game to go with seven rebounds, four assists, and three steals.

Oregon is slowly building back up after the Sabrina Ionescu era. The Ducks in a “rebuilding” season, still managed to reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament despite missing their starting point Te-Hina Paopao due to a leg injury.

 

Oregon lands commitment from USC transfer Endyia Rogers

Kelly Graves added more talent to the 2021-22 Ducks roster, landing a commitment from USC transfer Endyia Rogers.

It worked out very well the first time around, so the Ducks decided to go to the well once again.

USC point guard Endyia Rogers is now the Trojans former point guard as the junior-to-be has announced she is coming to Eugene to play for Kelly Graves and the Oregon women’s basketball team.

She will follow in the footsteps of Minyon Moore, who also left USC to be a Duck, but the two situations are quite different. Moore left Los Angeles as a senior transfer in hopes of playing in the NCAA tournament, which she was an integral part of Oregon’s Final Four team of 2019.

Rogers is leaving the Trojans because of a coaching change. Longtime Trojan coach Mark Trakh retired after 26 years of coaching, including nine total seasons with USC. Lindsay Gottlieb was hired as his replacement and that was when Rogers announced she was going elsewhere.

It was widely believed that the 5-foot-7 guard from Dallas was going to choose between Oregon and Arizona as her next destination.

In her time with the Trojans, ironically, she was Moore’s replacement as being their primary scorer. She averaged 14.8 points and 3.5 assists per game last season as a sophomore. As a Duck, Rogers won’t be expected to carry that kind of workload as she will be Te-Hina Paopao’s backup.

Oregon has become a popular landing spot for transfers as Graves is rivaling Dana Altman in convincing players to come to Eugene. Besides Rogers, the Ducks have signed Ahlise Hurst (New Mexico), Taylor Hosendove (Georgia State), and Chanaya Pinto (Northwest Florida State College).

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Former Clemson, Georgia State guard Taylor Hosendove coming to Oregon

Ducks head coach manages to pick up an experienced guard in former Clemson Tiger and Georgia State Panther Taylor Hosendove.

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Transfers leave and transfers arrive. This time for Kelly Graves’ women’s basketball program, they’re beginning to arrive.

A day after losing 6-foot-4 Angela Dugalic to UCLA, the Ducks can look forward to some reinforcements. Former Clemson and Georgia State guard Taylor Hosendove has announced that she is coming to Eugene on her Instagram page.

Hosendove led Georgia State in scoring and rebounding last season, averaging 12.5 points and 8.8 rebounds in 24 games. In her first season in Atlanta, the Los Angeles native scored 11.4 points and pulled down 8.9 rebounds per game.

As a freshman at Clemson, the Los Angeles native played sparingly as a Tiger, but she did have her moments, including seven rebounds against Tennessee and scoring 11 points against Illinois.

At Oregon, Hosedove will most likely add backcourt depth for a team that is desperate for experienced guard play. Right now, the Ducks have just four guards on the roster with three of them having just one year of college under their belt and incoming freshman Taylor Bigby in the program so far.

Look for Graves to pick up one or two more transfers or junior college talent to fill out a roster that has just nine players on it so far.

Taylor Mikesell becomes the latest Duck to leave the women’s basketball program

Taylor Mikesell spent just one season in Eugene before deciding it was best to move on and enter the transfer portal.

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We barely knew you, but always sorry to see someone leave.

After just one season in Eugene, senior-to-be Taylor Mikesell has decided to leave the Oregon Ducks women’s basketball program and re-enter the transfer portal.

Mikesell, who transferred to the Ducks from Maryland after two seasons with the Terrapins, joins Jaz Shelley and Taylor Chavez as players deciding to leave via the transfer portal. A record number of players are using the portal since the NCAA said players won’t have to sit out a year after transferring.

As a Duck, Mikesell averaged 9.3 points a game and shot 33 percent from the three-point line. She made an immediate impact with 28 points against Seattle in the season opener.

But Mikesell had difficulty finding a rhythm in her jump shot and was hot and cold as the year went along. She never did manage to have consistency in Kelly Graves’ offense and her numbers suffered. At Maryland, Mikesell averaged over 12 points a game and shot over 41 percent from long range, stats that she couldn’t replicate at Oregon.

Oregon State might wonder why Mikesell picked to her have her best games against the Beavers, however. In the three games against the Ducks’ biggest rival, Mikesell averaged over 20 points per contest and was 9-of-21 from three-point land.

Unfortunately, those three games were the exception, not the rule.

Whatever team winds up with Mikesell, they’ll be getting a player with tremendous talent as she was proven that she can be a player that can shoot her team to victory. She was the No. 32 ranked player coming out of high school and talent like that just doesn’t disappear.

Some things just don’t work out and Mikesell is one of those examples.

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Post Sabrina Ionescu era starts in Oregon with departure of Taylor Chavez, Jaz Shelley

Both Jaz Shelley and Taylor Chavez represented an era that is now all gone with their entries into the transfer portal.

This year was quite different for the women’s basketball program in more ways than one, as everyone had to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic and how it affected the way we watched sports.

But for the Oregon Ducks, not only did they have to play with the restrictions we all faced, they also had to figure out how to play without the trio of Sabrina Ionescu, Ruthy Hebard, and Satou Sabally. It took some time, but they eventually did figure it out, with it culminating in a second-round upset of third-seed Georgia in the NCAA tournament.

Now that the season is over, though, Oregon received the news that guards Taylor Chavez and Jaz Shelley are entering the transfer portal. Those two, plus seniors Erin Boley and Lydia Giomi, were the last reminders of days past. When the Ducks take the floor for the 2021-22 season, there won’t be one player on the roster who can say they played in a game with Sabrina and Company.

Considering that the Ducks will only be one year removed from the program’s greatest team ever, it’s quite the splash of water in the face and a realization that those days are over.

While it’s a shock to the system, it’s not all that surprising that Chavez and Shelley are looking for greener pastures elsewhere. Playing time for both guards was dwindling as the season moved along, with freshmen Maddie Scherr and Sydney Parrish jumping into the rotation before those two.

Despite the lack of playing time, Chavez and Shelley proved time and time again they can absolutely shoot the ball and they’ll help another team win a lot of games. Shelley still owns the Oregon record for making 10 threes in a game when she torched UC Riverside for 32 points Dec. 19, 2019.

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The next era of the women’s program is going to look a lot different. With 6-foot-7 Sedona Prince and 6-foot-5 Nyara Sabally finally able to be healthy and injury-free, coach Kelly Graves managed to add 5-star guard/forward Taylor Bigby and 6-foot-8 Phillipina Kyei, who will be the tallest player in Oregon history when she arrives. Pair those two up with the No. 1 recruiting class from last season, one can see why Graves is excited about the future.

Oregon won’t have to rely on set shooters hovering around the three-point line anymore. The Ducks will be able to cram the ball in the middle for easy shots and when the defense sags in, that’s when those open threes for the guards will present themselves.

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