Hebard, No. 3 Oregon women rediscover shooting touch in rout

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Ionescu becomes Oregon's all-time 3-point FG leader

Sabrina Ionescu buries the trey, giving her the most 3-pointers in school history.

Dec 8, 2019, 11:34 pm

EUGENE, Ore. -- Back home, Oregon looked completely comfortable on the court.

Ruthy Hebard had 22 points on 11-of-15 shooting and No. 3 Oregon rediscovered its touch from the field in a 95-56 rout of South Dakota State on Sunday.

"When we're in rhythm, it doesn't matter where the defense is, just take it and they went in," freshman Holly Winterburn said after scoring a season-high 17 points. "We all know we haven't been shooting the ball briliantly and we're such good shooters, it's jut having confidence in ourselves and it just clicked."

After making under 50% in their previous two games at the Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Ducks (7-1) shot a season-high 64% from the field, including 58% on 3-pointers, to overwhelm the Jackrabbits (6-4).

Oregon had shot a cumulative 52% from the field in their previous three home games.

Satou Sabally, who made all four of her shots in adding 16 points, said "it's always nice to play at home. We always love to play in front of our home fans and have our rhythm back."

Sabrina Ionescu was within range of her 20th career triple-double before being pulled midway through the fourth quarter with 12 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds.

In addition to Winterburn's five 3s, Erin Boley had 12 points on four 3-pointers, all in the first half, as the Ducks made 14 of 24 overall from long range.

The Ducks had five players in double figures for the first time this season.

"The best part of that is we only took (a season-low) 24 3s, which is more in line with what we typically do," coach Kelly Graves said. "I think we've gotten 3 happy, but not (in this win). We took the right ones."

Tylee Irwin led South Dakota State with 10 points as the Jackrabbits shot 37% overall, lifted to that by making seven of 15 shots in the final quarter.

Oregon never trailed and used a 9-0 spurt to take a 13-3 lead barely four minutes into the game. The lead was 23-9 after the first quarter as the Ducks forced six turnovers with full-court pressure.

"That was a key," Graves said. "We thought we're going to have to be the aggressors so for the first time this year we went to the three-quarter court (defensive) look.

"We made that a commitment to that (in practices) this week and we got them out of sync ... I don't think they ever got comfortable. If we play defense like that we're going to be difficult to beat."

BIG PICTURE

South Dakota State: The Jackrabbits have still never beaten a team ranked higher than 12th and don't figure to play another top 10 team during the regular season.

Oregon: The Ducks are 4-0 in home games and the closest margin of victory was 36 points, with their home wins by an average of 43.5 points.

SABRINA'S STATS

Ionescu took sole possession of the Oregon records for double-figure scoring games (109) and 3-point field goals (285).

MISSING THE FREE ONES

While Oregon's field goal percentage was a season high, the Ducks had a season-low percentage on free throws of 65%, on 13 of 20. The Jackrabbits made only four of their 10 free throws.

UP NEXT

South Dakota State hosts Chattanooga on Wednesday, the first of three consecutive home games.

Oregon takes a week off from games for final exams before playing at Long Beach State on Saturday.

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