Cardinal ends season with a downer to the Ducks

Updated March 2: Added game reports from Stanford Daily and Register-Guard.

The Ducks were eager for their Big Win of the season and got it from a listless Cardinal, 62-55.

The teams traded baskets throughout a low-scoring first half, with neither finding much success in breaking through their opponent's defense.

The Cardinal sank five treys against the Ducks' zone defense in the first half — two from Bonnie and one apiece from Lili, Brittany and Amber. The Ducks' star forward, Jillian Alleyne, broke through double- and triple-teams for 13 points in the first half.

The Cardinal took a one-point lead into the break, but held onto it for only four more minutes.

The Cardinal didn't attack the basket much against the Ducks' zone defense. They relied instead on 3-pointers and long jumpers (they made only five layups in the entire game). This caused two problems.

First, the 3-pointers stopped falling. The Cardinal launched 13 more in the second half, but only one (by Lili) dropped in.

Second, they drew only five fouls — just one of them a shooting foul — and scored just one free throw.

The Ducks drew fifteen fouls against the Cardinal's man-to-man defense ‐ most of them shooting fouls (they were in the bonus for only the last 1½ minutes of the game) ‐ and made 11 of 15 free throws.

Lili was the top scorer for the Cardinal today, with 14 points. Amber was just behind with 13 points and also had five assists and two steals. Kaylee led the rebounding with eleven and added five points and two assists. Brittany came closest to a double-double with nine points and eight rebounds.

Jillian Alleyne was the top scorer and rebounder of the game (22 and 12), her 27th double-double of the season.

Karlie has a brace on the fingers of her right hand and was not in uniform this afternoon.

So the Pac-12 season has ended with OSU earning the title, ASU (which won both its games this weekend) in second place and Stanford tied with Cal for third. Because Stanford defeated OSU and Cal lost to OSU, Stanford will be the No. 3 seed in the tourney. Here is the tournament bracket.

Here are game reports and commentary:

• Defeated by the Ducks, the Stanford Athletics game recap
• Ducks shock No. 19 Stanford on senior night , the Oregon Athletics game recap
• Oregon women’s basketball upsets No. 19 Stanford by Jonathan Hawthorne (the Oregon Daily Emerald)
• Oops, the Cardinal women do it again with a loss at Oregon from Palo Alto Online
• Underwhelming regular season ends in loss against Oregon by Alexa Philippou (The Stanford Daily)
• Ducks pull off upsetby Ryan Thorburn (Register-Guard)

The box score and play-by-play,

Postgame quotes from Oregon head coach Kelly Graves and several players,

The game highlights video from ESPN,

A gallery of photos by Dave & Marian Cortesi