Pac-12 Preview
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Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament
March 5–8
TV: Pac-12 Network. Final broadcast on ESPN2
Tournament bracket
Pac-12 Tournament Pregame event in Las Vegas
The UO women’s basketball team has won three straight Pac-12 regular season titles, and opens play in the conference tournament on March 6 as the No. 1 seed.The Ducks will play in the second quarterfinal against either Washington or Utah—whoever wins the first round game on March 5. Oregon is undefeated against both schools over the last three seasons.
Pac-12 head coaches named senior guard Sabrina Ionescu the conference player of the year for the third year in a row—the first time in conference history a player has earned that distinction.Taylor Chavez was named the sixth player of the year, head coach Kelly Graves took home John R. Wooden Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors, and forwards Ruthy Hebard and Satou Sabally joined Ionescu on the All-Pac-12 team. In media voting, Ionescu and Graves repeated as conference player and coach of the year respectively, while Hebard and Sabally were once again named to the All-Pac-12 team, and Hebard and guard Minyon Moore were named to the All-Defensive team.
Ionescu, Sabally, and Hebard were also named semifinalist for the Naismith Trophy, presented to the national player of the year.
Ionescu and Hebard finish their senior seasons as the No. 1 and No. 2 scorers in UO history. Ionescu, the likely No. 1 overall pick in April’s WNBA draft, is also the only 2,000-point, 1,000-rebound, 1,000-assist player in NCAA history, and with 26 career triple-doubles she has more than twice the number of the player in second on the NCAA’s all-time list.
But for all of her successes, this season has also seen Ionescu suffer the loss of her friend and mentor Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, who Ionescu was also close with. Following the UO’s 88-57 senior day win over Washington, Ionescu eulogized Kobe,and put into perspective what the rest of the season means for the Ducks.
“After losing to Baylor [in last year’s Final Four], I was coming back hungry to get to another Final Four, win a national championship,” she said. “That was really the goal up until obviously a month ago. Then you kind of realize there are so many more things that are important besides that final outcome. Nothing is really promised, nothing is guaranteed. What we’re building here is really remarkable and something that doesn’t come across very often on the men’s side or the women’s side.“Just wanting to embrace that and really immerse myself into what we’ve built here and being able to be the best person, on and off the court, that I can. Just making sure I’m more than a basketball player. I’m reaching out in the community and doing my best. That’s really the unfinished business.”
Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Tournament
March 11–14
TV: Pac-12 Network. One quarterfinal and semifinal, and the final broadcast on FS1
Tournament bracket
Pac-12 Tournament Pregame event in Las Vegas
The UO men’s basketball team heads into the final weekend of the regular season second in the conference behind UCLA. The Ducks host Cal on March 5 and Stanford on March 7 before flying to Las Vegas; should they win these games, they can secure the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament. It will also be the first time in conference history one school swept the football, women’s basketball, and men’s basketball titles.
The Ducks are led by senior Payton Pritchard, who was recently nominated for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award. Pritchard is the first men’s player in the Pac-12 to reach 1,500 points, 500 rebounds, and 600 assists, and he leads the conference in scoring and assists. He is one of only five players in the nation to lead their respective conference in each category.
- Abby Keep, UO student