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A5 S PORTS THE BULLETIN • MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2021 bendbulletin.com/sports WOMEN’S BASKETBALL NFC CHAMPIONSHIP | TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS 31, GREEN BAY PACKERS 26 ROAD WARRIORS Tampa Ba Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady reacts after winning the NFC championship on Sunday. Brady passed for 280 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Matt Ludtke/AP Brady’s bunch heading home for Super Bowl; 10th overall for the 43-year-old quarterback BY STEVE MEGARGEE Associated Press G REEN BAY, Wis. — Tom Brady, along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ road magic, has them heading home to the Super Bowl, the first team to play in one on their home field. Brady owns six Super Bowl rings with New England and now heads to his 10th NFL champi- onship game with his new team. With help from a stifling pass rush and a curious late call on fourth-and-goal by the Packers, Brady and the Bucs beat top- seeded Green Bay 31-26 for the NFC title Sunday. “It’s great to get another road win, and now we got a home game,” said Brady, who went 20 of 36 for 280 yards with three touch- downs. “Who’d ever thought a home Super Bowl for us? But we did it.” The Bucs (14-5) earned their franchise-record eighth consecu- tive road victory to reach the Su- per Bowl for the first time since their 2002 championship season. They were helped by a strange decision by Packers coach Matt LaFleur with just over two min- utes remaining and down by eight points. On fourth-and-goal, he elected to kick a field goal to get within five. Tampa Bay then ran out the clock on the Packers (14- 4). The Bucs will face the defend- ing Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 7. “We’re coming home,” said Bucs coach Bruce Arians, who began his coaching career in 1975 at Texas Tech and will make his first trip to the Super Bowl as a head coach. “We’re coming home to win.” Green Bay trailed 31-23 and had first-and-goal from the 8 in the last few minutes. But af- ter Aaron Rodgers threw three straight incompletions, the Pack- ers settled for Mason Crosby’s 26- yard field goal with 2:05 left. The Packers had all three tim- eouts left and were hoping their defense could force a punt. The Bucs foiled that plan, draining the rest of the clock, helped by a pass interference penalty on Kevin King. Led by Shaquil Barrett and Ja- son Pierre-Paul combining for five sacks, Tampa Bay snapped Green Bay’s seven-game winning streak. The Packers lost in the NFC championship game for the fourth time in the last seven sea- sons. Green Bay hasn’t reached the Super Bowl since its 2010 championship season. See NFC / A6 AFC | KANSAS CITY CHIEFS 38, BUFFALO BILLS 24 Jeff Roberson/AP Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes celebrates after throwing a 5-yard touchdown pass to tight end Travis Kelce against the Buffalo Bills in the AFC championship game on Sunday in Kansas City, Missouri. Reigning champion Chiefs dump the Bills in AFC title BY DAVE SKRETTA Associated Press K ANSAS CITY, Mo. — It took the Kansas City Chiefs five frustrating decades to make their second Super Bowl ap- pearance. Now, the defending champs are headed there for the second straight year. Showing no lingering effects from his concussion, Patrick Ma- homes sliced up Buffalo’s second- ary with ruthless efficiency Sunday night, helping the Chiefs roll to a 38-24 victory over Josh Allen and the Bills in the AFC championship game. The reigning Super Bowl MVP finished with 325 yards passing and three touchdowns, most of it to favorite targets Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill, who complemented their star quarterback with a re- cord-setting night of their own. See AFC / A6 LATE SATURDAY: PAC-12 BASKETBALL | OREGON STATE 75, NO. 21 OREGON 64 Thompson, Alatishe help Beavs topple rival Ducks Associated Press Andy Nelson/AP Oregon State guard Ethan Thompson brings the ball up the floor while being guarded by Oregon guard Amauri Hardy on Saturday in Eugene. EUGENE — Ethan Thomp- son scored 19 points and Warith Alatishe had 14 points and 16 rebounds as Oregon State beat No. 21 Oregon 75- 64 on Saturday night. Jarod Lucas added 13 points and the Beavers (8-5, 4-3 Pac- 12) had a 42-23 rebounding edge in their third straight vic- tory. Thompson, a senior guard, joined Gary Payton as the only players in school history with at least 1,400 points and 400 assists. He was 3 for 11 from the field, but made 12 of 14 free throws and scored 14 points in the second half. “They were pressing a lot so it freed up some looks if I was able to get down the court,” Thompson said. “I might have been forcing too much early, but in the second half I let the game come to me. Guys were making plays for me when I was open.” Eugene Omoruyi had 15 points and nine rebounds for Oregon (9-3, 4-2), playing without four projected starters. Freshman guard Jalen Terry scored 13 points, and Eric Wil- liams Jr. added 11. “We got killed on the boards, that was by far the biggest factor,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “Our phys- icality on the boards was just awful. We had a chance from the free throw line to stay close and we went 14 for 23 and they went 22 for 24.” The Beavers broke a 34-all tie early in the second half with eight straight points and never trailed the rest of the way. “We got key stops and made stops, which is something we didn’t do early in the season,” Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle said. “We are certainly making progress.” See Beavs / A6 Prince, Giomi lead No. 13 Oregon Sedona Prince scored 16 points and blocked five shots, Lydia Giomi added a double-double off the bench and No. 13 Oregon defeated Wash- ington 69-52 on Sunday. Giomi had 11 points and 10 rebounds and fel- low reserve Sydney Par- rish added 12 points for the short-handed Ducks (11-3, 9-3 Pac-12 Confer- ence), who were without starters Nyara Sabally and Erin Boley, who had made 84 consecutive starts. Angela Dugalic scored 12 points on 5-of-7 shoot- ing with eight rebounds in her first career start. Te-Hina Paopao scored 10 with six assists and three steals. Haley Van Dyke scored 13 to lead the Huskies (4- 5, 1-5). UW has lost four straight, the first one to the Ducks 73-49 in Seat- tle on Dec. 19. Since then they have had six games postponed, including the last five. Tameiya Sadler and Darcy Rees both scored 10. Parish had a pair of 3-pointers and Prince scored twice in a first-quarter 12-0 run to get the Ducks started. They got the lead to 26- 12 on a Giomi basket in the middle of the second quarter before the Hus- kies had an 11-2 run. It was 32-23 at the half. Oregon scored the first four points of the third quarter to put the lead in double figures for good, stretching it as high as 20 and to 22 mid- way through the fourth quarter. The usually high-pow- ered Ducks continued to win with defense, holding their 10th opponent to fewer than 60 points. Oregon goes to Utah on Friday. The Huskies have a makeup game with Oregon State on Tuesday. Oregon St. falls to Washington St. It was a loss, confirmed by the scoreboard Sun- day afternoon in Gill Col- iseum as Oregon State dropped a 77-75 double overtime decision to Washington State. But the outcome was about the only negative in women’s basketball coach Scott Rueck’s mind. Within the first two sentences of his post- game press conference, Rueck called the perfor- mance a step in the right direction. “This was so fun, even though it turned into a loss,” Rueck said. “The wins are coming.” Make no mistake, the wins must come quickly if Oregon State is to make a run at the NCAA tour- nament. The Beavers lost their fifth consecu- tive game and fell to 3-5 overall. But OSU is a team in a bit of a rebuild after losing a key group of se- niors and transfer guard from last season. The Bea- vers count on a handful of players among their top nine with little to no experience at the Pac-12 level. The Beavers held Washington State (8-3, 6-3) to 34.6% shooting (28 of 81), battled back from several second-half deficits to force overtime. OSU had a chance with the final possession in both overtimes to win the game. The Beavers had a career-high scor- ing performance from Aleah Goodman of 33 points and received a double-double from Tay- lor Jones (16 points, 14 rebounds). — Bulletin wire reports