Friday
Best Bet
College Basketball: Idaho State at Montana
7:30 p.m., Fox Sports Net
SPORTS EDITOR: JEFF SMITH Smittside@aol.com
The Pits
k
The Oregon bench — Camber Ellingson, Alyssa Fredrick, Ndidi Unaka, Kourtney Shreve and Katy Polansky (left to right)
Adam Amato Emerald
— react to Oregon’s 77-76 last-second loss to Washington State Thursday at McArthur Court.
Women stunned after loss to Cougars
■ ‘Duck soup’: Wazzu’s Joanna
Smith shoots the Ducks down in the
final seconds once again
By Adam Jude
Oregon Daily Emerald
She did it again, folks.
Joanna Smith is the dagger in the Ducks’
heart, the thorn in their side, the monkey
on their back and any other cliche you can
think of.
The Cougar senior guard — who hit the
game-winning three-pointer Jan. 20 to beat
Oregon — won the game again for her team
Thursday night at McArthur Court, this
time with less than one second remaining.
Running off the court after the last-sec
ond hurrah, Washington State senior Vic
toria Harrod expressed the flavor of the mo
ment: “Duck soup baby, Duck soup.”
After Oregon senior Brianne Meharry split
a pair of free throws to put the Ducks up one
with 10 seconds remaining, Cougar point
guard Katie Nyseth drove the length of the
court and dished off to Kelley Berglund, who
threw up a desperation three. The ball flew
off the front of the rim into the arms of Smith,
who spun, released... swish.
“I had no idea how much time was left; I
just threw it up, and it went in,” Smith said
or her last-second hero
ics, which propelled
her team to a 77-76 vic
tory, its first season
sweep of Oregon since
1991. “I don’t know; I
just wasn’t thinking.”
“Joanna is just awe
some,” said senior
Yvonne Volkman, who
paced the Cougs with
22 points and eight
boards. “She is the
SMITH
heart-breaker for Oregon.”
Smith’s final shot capped off a fireworks
display of long balls by the Cougs in the fi
nal three minutes of the game. With the
Ducks leading 69-60, Nyseth hit a trey, then
hit another bomb following an Oregon
bucket to bring the Cougs within five. A
pair of Nyseth free throws preceded a
Smith three-ball to cut the lead to one with
1:46. Harrod also added a three in the final
70 seconds to keep the momentum tilted in
the Cougars’ favor.
Washington State was 10-for-12 from be
Turn to Cougars, page 12
■The Ducks crumble in the final
minutes, and their losing streak
grows to five games
By Scott Pesznecker
Oregon Daily Emerald
Oregon women’s basketball returned to
McArthur Court for about 20 minutes
Thursday night, and it was grand.
Center Jenny Mowe swatted shots.
Guard Jamie Craighead swished three
pointers. Angelina
Wolvert played a game’s
worth in that first half,
scoring 17 points. The
home team led 32-16
with 4 minutes, 25 sec
onds to go in the half, and
the Mac Court crowd of
4,240 was rocking.
But suddenly, the Pit turned into The
Pits.
Washington State (10-12 overall, 5-7 Pa
cific-10 Conference), the team that hand
ed the Ducks their first Pac-10 loss a month
ago, staged a late second-half comeback to
beat Oregon, 77-76, on a last-second shot
by Cougar guard Joanna Smith.
The Ducks (12-10, 5-7) lost their fifth
straight, despite holding a 69-60 lead with
3:11 left to play.
“I’m really at a loss for words,” a dis
traught Mowe said. “I don’t know what
went wrong. I mean, we were winning,
and then all of a sudden we’re losing. And
all of a sudden, she chucks up a shot and it
goes in.”
The Ducks lost, despite the fact that
head coach Jody Runge had never lost to
the Cougars at Mac Court before.
“They’re not happy about where we are
or what’s happening to us,” Runge said
about her players, “but it’s really hard to
point the finger when somebody’s hurt or
sick.”
And the Ducks lost, despite Wolvert’s
career-high 32 points and 10 rebounds.
“Honestly, it kind of felt like UAB to
me,” said Wolvert, referring to the one
point loss that tossed Oregon from the
NCAA tournament last season. “The way
it happened, the girl just turned around
and took that shot, it felt like —” her voice
trailed off— “lose it at the last second.”
As if things couldn’t get worse, forward
Lindsey Dion’s bad left ankle forced her to
Turn to Women’s, page 12
Tumbling Ducks fumble last chance to win at WSU
■ The Oregon men’s basketball team
loses its fourth straight Pac-10game —
to a team it had beaten eight straight
times
By Peter Hockaday
Oregon Daily Emerald
Just when you thought the Oregon men’s bas
ketball season couldn’t get any worse, the Ducks
went ahead and lost to a team they had beaten
eight times in their last eight matchups.
Oregon (12-10, 3-9 Pacific
10 Conference) dropped a 63
62 thriller to Washington State
(10-12,3-9) in Pullman, Wash.,
Thursday night. The loss was
the Ducks’ fourth straight.
The Ducks had an opportu
‘ nity to win the game in the
closing seconds after the Cougars’ Mike Bush
missed the back end of a pair of free throws, giv
ing WSU a one-point advantage. But with five
seconds on the clock, Oregon freshman guard
Luke Ridnour dribbled into traffic, fell down and
MEN'S
BASKETBALL
lost the ball to Washington State’s Framecio Lit
tle, who held on to cement the Cougar victory.
“This one got away from us,” a very tired
Ducks head coach Ernie Kent told KUGN-Radio
after the game. “We had them where we wanted
them, but we just couldn’t turn the corner.”
The contest see-sawed back and forth, with
the two teams exchanging leads seven times, five
times in the second half. But the Cougars never
trailed after Bush hit a three-pointer with 2:20
left in the contest. Oregon knotted the game at
60 and 62, but couldn’t pull out the victory in
the end.
The Ducks led the game by as many as seven
points in the first half, and led by two at the half
after the Cougars closed the first frame on a 12-8
run.
Washington State picked up where it left off
in the second half, outscoring Oregon 15-5 in the
first nine minutes.
But then the Ducks’ Bryan Bracey took over,
scoring nine points to give Oregon a 50-49 lead
with 8:23 to play. After the teams exchanged
leads, Bracey hit two key free throws to tie the
Turn to Men’s, page 12
Washington State’s Mike Bush (left) hit the game-winning free throw with 5.5 seconds left to secure his
team’s 63-62 victory over the Ducks. Oregon had eight straight wins over WSU before Thursday’s game.