EVANSTON, Ill. — Oregon women’s basketball has its first conference win as a member of the Big Ten, and Deja Kelly enjoyed a milestone moment Tuesday as well.Kelly reached 2,000 points in her career Tuesday, helping the Ducks beat Northwestern at Welsh-Ryan Arena, 85-65. The UO women improved to 10-4 overall, winning for the first time in three tries in Big Ten Conference play.“All around, this may have been our best effort,” UO coach Kelly Graves said. “This was a good team that we didn’t let look so good tonight.”The Ducks had five players score in double figures and another two score nine points each, including Kelly, who got to the rim with her left hand in the first quarter to reach 2,000 career points. Peyton Scott led the UO women with 14 points Tuesday, Nani Falatea hit a trio of three-pointers on her way to 13 points and Phillipina Kyei had 12 points with nine rebounds. Kelly had eight assists, four rebounds and no turnovers to go along with her nine points.Oregon shot 56 percent as a team, and had 25 assists on 33 made field goals. The Ducks’ depth once again was an asset, with 46 bench points, and they had 27 fastbreak points along with a 46-36 edge on points in the paint.The Ducks now return home to host Wisconsin on Saturday, after splitting games on the road this past week.“Any time you get a split on the road in conference play — whatever conference you play in — that’s a good thing,” Graves said.How It Happened: Kelly wasted no time in collecting her 2,000th career point, as her left-handed layin marked the Ducks’ first points of the afternoon. The basket ended a five-point Northwestern run to start the game, and sparked a 6-0 UO run to give the Ducks an early lead.Neither team put together a run longer than four points the rest of the quarter, but a three-pointer from Falatea and a layup from Sarah Rambus off an inbound play with 3 seconds left helped Oregon to a 19-16 lead after the first. Kyei scored six points on 3-of-5 shooting in the quarter.“Philli really set the tone early,” Graves said. “We’re just a different team if we get good inside-outside balance, and she gave us that tonight.”Rambus connected on three straight field goal tries to open the second quarter, pushing the Ducks’ lead to five points, 25-20. The Wildcats trimmed UO’s lead to a point, 29-28, but the Ducks responded by scoring the next seven to stretch it to an eight-point game, forcing a Northwestern timeout with just under four minutes left in the half.Oregon closed the opening half on a 14-8 run and took a 43-34 lead into the locker room. UO got 25 points from its bench in the half and shot 65 percent in the second quarter (56 percent in the half). Kyei and Ehis Etute led the Ducks with 10 points apiece, while Rambus hit on all four of her field goals on her way to eight first-half points.The lead swelled to 15 in the opening minutes of the third, as the Ducks went on an eight-point spurt after buckets from Elisa Mevius, Amina Muhammad, Scott and Kelly. The 8-0 run keyed a 14-2 spread over three and half minutes, handing UO a 59-40 edge.Kelly and Scott paved the way with six points apiece in the quarter, helping Oregon shoot 60 percent from the field while limiting Northwestern to 5-for-14 shooting (36 percent). Eight different Ducks scored in the frame, as they outscored the Wildcats 22-16.The fourth quarter saw the Duck’s lead grow to 25 points after a 7-0 run midway through the quarter. Falatea drilled a pair of three-pointers on her way to eight points in the quarter, while Alexis Whitfield contributed five.Notable: UO’s offense finished the game shooting 56 percent from the floor, its second-highest efficiency of the season. … The Ducks’ bench finished with 46 points to NU’s 24, as the Oregon reserves outscored the starters for the third time in the last four games. … Ten different players got into the scoring column, with five in double figures and seven finishing with at least nine points.Up Next: The Ducks host Wisconsin on Saturday (12:30 p.m., Big Ten Network).
