EUGENE — With Satou Sabally out for two more games while playing in Europe, Oregon women’s basketball is still working through its rotation of personnel and there’s much left to be decided.
Junior forward Lydia Giomi had a career game off the bench with 18 points and nine rebounds in Monday’s 89-47 season opening win over Northeastern, but the guards other than Sabrina Ionescu and Minyon Moore were all less productive.
Oregon coach Kelly Graves was not sure if he’d stick with a 10-deep rotation tonight against Utah State (6 p.m.).
“That remains to be seen,” Graves said. “They got to earn it. I’m not going to just give minutes away. Everybody’s got to earn them but since we have in essence four games in eight days, the turnaround is pretty quick so we wanted to give as much rest as we could.
“But at the same time we want to make sure that the product out there is good. ... They need to take advantage of that. This is an opportunity for somebody to put their stamp on this season early on. That remains to be seen who’s going to step up in the next couple of games without (Sabally).”
No. 1 Oregon’s 15 turnovers and 25.7 percent shooting from 3-point range against Northeastern were uncharacteristic and didn’t sit well with multiple Oregon starters, particularly Ionescu and Erin Boley, who shot 2 of 10 from behind the arc.
Sophomore Taylor Chavez got the start in place of Sabally and had four points and three rebounds but also four turnovers in just over 19 minutes. Freshmen guards Holly Winterburn (three rebounds, three assists) and Jaz Shelley each had six points in 21 and 16 minutes, respectively, a forward Lucy Cochrane got her feet wet with seven minutes and just an assist.
“It’s a work in progress,” Graves said of UO’s freshmen. “It’s tough to step in and play with elite players like they are. There’s a learning curve, but they’ll get better. I thought they showed some good things. It was nice to see Jaz knock down a couple of threes and Holly continues to be aggressive. There was some positives.”
Tonight’s game will almost definitely include a pair of milestones as Ionescu needs only four points to reach 2,000 in her career and Ruthy Hebard is just six rebounds away from 1,000 in her career.