For the first 12 minutes of the second half Thursday night, the Oregon women's basketball team looked like it could beat anybody.
But for the rest of the game, the Ducks would have been hard-pressed to compete with anyone as Oregon dropped a 75-66 decision to Arizona State in front of 2,207 in Matthew Knight Arena.
The Ducks played a horrible first half, committing 17 turnovers that helped the Sun Devils build a 22-6 lead. At one point, Oregon had twice as many points (six) as Nicole Canepa had fouls (three).
But as the first half unfolded, the Ducks slowly climbed within shouting distance of ASU, going into halftime within nine, 37-26.
"We felt like we were in it and could pull closer because Arizona State wasn't hitting a bunch of shots themselves," Coach Paul Westhead said.
Westhead's team proved him right coming out like world beaters in the second half. Amanda Johnson suddenly found her stroke from the outside, as did Kristi Fallin and point guard Ariel Thomas stopped turning the ball over.
Fallin hit back-to-back threes from the right corner to pull the Ducks to within six at 45-39 with 16:40 left and the Ducks knew they had a chance to pull this one out of a hat and the Sun Devils knew they were on the verge of blowing a huge lead.
Arizona State held the lead to 52-45, then saw the Ducks rip off a 16-2 flurry.
Fallin knocked down a three with 11:14 left to pull the Ducks to within two at 52-50. After Tenaya Watson hit a jumper, Thomas hit two free throws and a drive-to-the-lane scoop shot on consecutive possessions to knot the contest at 54-54.
Johnson and Danielle Love each added a trey and the Ducks had fashioned themselves respectable 60-54 edge with 7:13 left.
Coming out of a time out, Arizona State ratcheted up the defensive pressure and held the Ducks scoreless for the next five minutes. The Sun Devils' physical play converted offensive rebounds and second chances during a 10-0 scoring burst.
Thomas scored with 2:59 left to pull to Oregon within two at 64-62, but Kimberly Brandon's three with 1:59 left sealed the deal for ASU.
"Kind of an unusual game," said head coach Paul Westhead. "(We) didn't play well at all in the first half - 17 turnovers - yet had a sense . I told our players I thought we could come back and win this game.
"Pretty good effort to get back in it - until the six, seven minute mark and then couldn't finish it out. If there's an area that we've been fighting all year - we gave up some offensive rebounds in those last seven minutes that really hurt our cause."
"To our team's credit they just settled in. It wasn't as hard as they thought in the first half and they got into some offense. We got Amanda Johnson going a little bit. Ariel Thomas settled down."
"Ironically the very things that were hurting us in the first half - inept, turnover offense - we cleaned up. We realized they weren't going to shoot the lights out from the outside so we could pack it in. But when you do that and they miss, you have to get the ball."
"Running down somewhere around the eight minute mark to the end of the game we just stopped getting missed shots."
Johnson led the Ducks (13-15, 4-13) with 19 points and Thomas added 18, but once again, her nine turnovers proved to be costly.
Brandon led the way for the Sun Devils with 20 points and eight rebounds. Dymond Simon added 17 and Becca Tobin scored 15 for Arizona State, who is now squarely on the NCAA tournament bubble with a 18-9 overall mark and 10-7 conference record.
Next up for Oregon is Senior Day on Saturday when the Ducks face Arizona for a 2 pm tip-off.
