AUSTIN, Texas — No. 8 seed Oregon was too much to handle as No. 9 seed Virginia Tech fell 70-60 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday, bringing its season to a close.
“I think we got a little razzled in the beginning,” Tech guard Mackenzie Nelson said, “and I think we calmed down a little bit, and they kind of made another run, and we weren’t able to fight back.”
In a game of massive momentum swings, the Ducks (23-12, 8-10 Big Ten) got the best of the Hokies (23-10, 12-6 ACC) in the first and third quarters and put them on their heels.
Katie Fiso’s layup for Oregon tied things at nine at the 5:47 mark of the first quarter, and the team turned it up a notch after that, holding Tech scoreless for 5:22 and using a 12-0 run to provide some breathing room. After the first 10 minutes, the Hokies were in a 22-11 hole.
Fiso was destructive with her downhill drives, making the right decisions to either put it up herself or dump it off to open teammates, who converted easy buckets. Sarah Rambus and Amina Muhammad came off the bench for the Ducks and provided nine points.
“I just don’t think we came ready to play,” Nelson said. “We talked about the physicality of [Ehis Etute]. And I think we had a few missed lapses on that, and then I think with [Fiso] and their guards, we had a lot of easy switches and easy possibilities to make easy plays on the defensive end, and we just didn’t.
“I think that was a little bit of lack of communication, maybe a little bit of nerves. I don’t know what the reason was. But I think that kind of made it hard for us defensively. And we bounced back a little bit. We had our runs, but we just didn’t have enough fight in us today.”
To make matters worse for Tech, leading scorers Carleigh Wenzel and Carys Baker were both whistled for two fouls in the contest’s first 11 minutes, forcing them to sit for the rest of the first half.
To the Hokies’ credit, they pulled out of the hole behind a variety of contributions. Nelson provided a shot in the arm with a 3-pointer and added two points off free throws in transition. Kayl Petersen came off the bench and drilled just her third 3-pointer on the year (on 19 attempts), and back-to-back jumpers from Mel Daley cut the deficit to two, 28-26, with 4:37 left in the half.
Oregon capped off the period with a triple from senior forward Mia Jacobs, one of her three on the day, which made it 35-29. Still, Tech felt confident having clawed its way back, particularly with Baker and Wenzel on the bench.
“I thought our bench stepped up for us in the second quarter,” Tech head coach Megan Duffy said. “We got some good momentum, cut a double-digit deficit to six. And even the locker room at halftime, we were really encouraged by just [tightening] up our defense a little bit, celebrated some players — Mel, Kayl — who really stepped up for us, and then the mindset of getting Carleigh and Carys back.”
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Then Oregon delivered a knockout punch to start the third quarter.
Baker got the Hokies on the board first, but things abruptly became all about the Ducks as Tech couldn’t do much on either end. Oregon’s dynamic duo of Fiso and Ehis Etute took over in different ways.
Etute got to the foul line twice, drawing two personals in 90 seconds on Tech forward Kilah Freelon, sending her to the bench while converting three of the four free throws. Fiso added a layup in between, and then when the Hokies rotated poorly and left Fiso wide open at the top of the key, she easily drained a 3-pointer. On the next possession, she drove and kicked it to Etute, whose layup forced a timeout from Duffy.
“It’s tough because I thought we had good momentum going into the third quarter,” Duffy said. “And I think between the first and third quarter, we kind of got beat at the same stuff. I thought we had some bad timing on guarding their high-low. I thought we let 35, Etute, catch the ball in the best position, where she just has to turn and finish.
“I thought we had a couple of cheap fouls within that in both quarters. I thought, even at the beginning of the game, we were a step slow on some of the things we worked on, and you never know what that is. Is it nerves, is it looks a little different from film to live play? I thought we fouled because we were a step slow position-wise. So, I thought the first and third quarters were very similar with how we got beat tactically in the basketball side.”
That was a quick 10-0 run in two minutes from the Ducks, putting them ahead 45-31, but it didn’t stop there.
Etute scored out of the timeout, and after two scoreless minutes from both sides, two field goals from Jacobs made it a 20-point game at the third-quarter media timeout: 51-31. For good measure, two Rambus foul shots 30 seconds later capped off the 18-0 run, which buried the Hokies.
“I think they just capitalized on a lot of our mistakes,” Baker said, “and then we just didn’t really close that gap. I think it just started on our defense. Obviously, the second quarter was huge with me and Carleigh out. I think the girls really picked it up, but then in the third quarter, we just made a couple of mistakes, and we weren’t able to communicate fast enough what was going on.”
Tech couldn’t climb out of that pit, despite an admirable effort from Baker, who put the team on her shoulders in the fourth quarter. After just four points through the first 30 minutes, she went off for 17 of the team’s 20 points in the final period, knocking down five triples.
Baker finished with her second double-double of the season with 21 points on 8-for-15 shooting (5-for-8 3FG) to accompany a career-high 14 rebounds. Along with Wenzel, who added three points from the line, Baker helped the Hokies end the day on a 14-3 run and cut the final margin to 10 points at 70-60.
“I think my first half was definitely hard for me,” Baker said. “I was in foul trouble. I was a little bit shaky in that first quarter. So, just going back to what I know. … I don’t think in that second half I questioned a single shot that I took, and I don’t think they did either.”
In the end, Tech wasn’t good enough on either end, shooting just 31.8 percent (21-for-66) to Oregon’s 48.2 percent clip (27-for-56). Though it got out in transition some and posted 13 points on the break (compared to just two from the Ducks), it was outscored 34-16 in the paint.
There also wasn’t much offensive punch for the majority of the game. Through three quarters, Wenzel and Baker were a combined 4-for-19 for 10 points, and Freelon fouled out with 7:24 remaining with just five points and five rebounds.
“We were concerned going into the game with their defense,” Duffy said. “… I thought we were just a little rushed on some of our layups, some short jumpers that I thought we could take a pull-up and we went all the way to the rim. So just maybe a little bit off that way.
“One of the things with our team that I would say we’ve struggled at times is when we do miss a couple shots, it can impact your defense, and I thought in those segments in the first and third quarter, we were just a step slow, maybe thinking about it too much, and then not getting a stop on the other end. … I thought they hurt us a couple different ways, whether that was length, some of their switches, blowing up some easy stuff we did.”
The Hokies also struggled around the rim, converting just eight of their 28 layups. They couldn’t generate much offense on the inside, and it wasn’t until Baker heated up in the waning moments that they started to feel it from deep.
“I thought we loaded up pretty well,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves said of his team’s defense. “They didn’t get much easy. Even though they ended up with some fastbreak points, they weren’t critical ones. I thought we did a good job when we needed to in fastbreak. We threw in a little bit more length tonight, and that always, I think, would help in that regard.”
As good as Tech’s bench was in the first half, it couldn’t close the gap with the Ducks, who received contributions from all over. Fiso posted 22 points, Jacobs had 13, Etute added 11 points and 11 rebounds, while Rambus, Ari Long and Muhammad combined for 22 points.
Baker was the Hokies’ lone double-figure scorer at 21, with Wenzel at nine and Daley at eight. Nelson, Freelon and Sophie Swanson — who entered late in the third quarter — were next at five points apiece. Petersen and Leila Wells each added three while Samyha Suffren chipped in one.
“It was funny — we were down it felt like a million, but I said, ‘If anything, we get out of this fourth quarter, let’s end this game with playing our hearts out,’” Duffy said. “Now, would we have loved to do it the whole 40 minutes? Absolutely. I think a little bit of this game is a microcosm of our season where we had those dips, those highs, those low moments, but they fought like heck the last 10 minutes of the game to cut it. And I’d like some different possessions back, but they fought for us.”
It was a disappointing way for Virginia Tech to go out, but it was a successful season nonetheless, from finishing tied for fifth in the conference to getting over the hump and reaching the NCAA Tournament.
“I think that we’re a fun group,” Nelson said. “We love each other, and I don’t know if every women’s basketball team around the country can say that, inside and out. It was a really good run. I think that we proved a lot of people wrong all year. Making the tournament is always going to be a memory for every single person in that room when we heard our name get called, and being able to have a fighting chance all year.
“We had our ups, we had our downs. We had good games. We had some games that we didn’t really like. But something I could say is we fought all year. Even if we had a good win, we came back in the gym, stayed humble. Even after bad losses, we got in the gym, we watched the film, and we came back together. And I don’t think that’s something to hang our heads on. There’s a lot tonight that we could have worked on, but looking back at the year, we did a lot of good things to be proud of and just hang our hats on that.”
On top of that, only two players — Daley and Freelon — graduate, meaning the opportunity is there to keep the current core while adding to the supporting cast. It’s a similar position to last season, when the Hokies were the first team out of the Big Dance.
They brought back Nelson, Wenzel, Baker and other pieces, acquired Freelon and Daley in the transfer portal, and used their setback as a stepping stone, putting their best foot forward this year. Can they do the same this offseason?
“I think that’s always been the thing as a coach,” Duffy said. “You want to get in the tournament, and then you want to get your seeding right, and there’s all these things. But this is a different time in college basketball. You have no guarantees the next year what your roster is going to look like, who’s going to be back. There’s a financial piece in all this. …
“We have to just go very small steps at a time. And I’m not the coach that’s going to sit here and have some dream forecast ahead. I think we’ve got the right people in the room in the locker room. We’ve got the right leaders. And, again, we’re going to take the positive things that happened and keep that momentum, and then — I’ll guarantee you something from me — I’m going to try everything I can to fix the things that didn’t go well.”
Box Score: Oregon 70, Virginia Tech 60
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