Tag: Sedona Prince

Oregon’s Sedona Prince accepts invite for Team USA tryout

Oregon’s 6-foot-7 center will travel to Columbia, SC to compete for the 12-person squad looking to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.

Oregon Ducks women’s basketball is already on the map, and Sedona Prince is attempting to go global.

The 6-foot-7 center accepted an invitation to the upcoming 2021 USA Basketball Women’s AmeriCup Team trials. Prince is one of 20 collegiate athletes to accept invitations to the trials, which are set for April 18-21 at the University of South Carolina.

“The AmeriCup is a national level competition with some of the best players in the Americas,” said Jennifer Rizzotti, chair of the USA Basketball Women’s Junior National Team Committee in a press release. “We need to bring the best players available and that’s who our committee has worked to identify. Because we are unable to bring WNBA players, we will rely on the best-returning college players.”

This isn’t the first time Prince has worn the Red, White, and Blue. She won a gold medal with Team USA at the 2018 FIBA Americas U18 Championship, and she was a bronze medalist at the 2015 FIBA Americas U16 Championship and the 2016 FIBA U17 World Cup.

In her first season at Oregon, Prince averaged 10.4 points and 3.9 rebounds per game while shooting 54.5 percent from the floor. It was her first active season as a college player after missing 2018-19 due to injury and sitting out 2019-20 because of NCAA transfer rules.

Prince had hoped to compete with the Ducks earlier, but the NCAA rejected her case to participate in 2019-20. So she had to wait yet another season to see the floor in Eugene. Once Prince was able to actually play for Oregon, her presence was felt. After some earlier leg injuries, Prince dominated the last half of the year.

Her efforts culminated with a career-high 22 points in a second-round upset win over 3-seed Georgia in the NCAA tournament.

Prince was also an internet sensation when she went to her Instagram to point out the disparities over the “weight room” that consisted of a few dumbbells in comparison to what the men were afforded. Her post went viral and prompted the NCAA to act appropriately.

USA National Team head coach Dawn Staley, who is also the coach at South Carolina, will serve as head coach of the USA AmeriCup Team and will be assisted by University of Arizona head coach Adia Barnes and Rizzotti, 2021 USA National Team assistant coach.

Ten nations from North, South and Central America and the Caribbean will take part in the 2021 AmeriCup, held June 11-19 in Puerto Rico. The top four finishing teams will advance to compete in one of four 2022 FIBA World Cup Qualifying Tournaments in hopes of earning one of the 12 spots in the 2022 FIBA World Cup field.

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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