Preview: Oregon State Women’s Basketball Versus Washington

The Oregon State Women’s Basketball Team takes on the Washington Huskies in their second match-up of the season. The Beavers took round one in Corvallis with a 75-63 win where the home team had to rally from a six point deficit at the half. Tip-off is slated for 3 PM PST on Sunday. You can check out the game on the Pac-12 Network, listen on the Oregon State Beavers Sports Network, or follow along on the team’s official Twitter account. Let’s take a closer look at the Huskies.

Washington (not ranked, 7-17 overall, 1-12 conference)

Since their last meeting, Washington has gone 1-11, with their one win coming against their state rivals, the Washington State Cougars. Though don’t let that fool you, they have been competitive as seven of those losses have come by 11 points or less.

They rank last in several notable statistical categories such as scoring defense, field goal percentage defense, three-point percentage defense, and blocked shots. The one thing that Washington does have going for them is their knack for stealing the ball, second best in the conference at 9.8 per game. Look for the Huskies to use that relenting pressure to force the Beavers into multiple turnovers.

Their leading scorer remains sophomore guard Amber Melgoza, who has increased her average by a couple digits to 17.2 since these teams last meeting, good for fourth best in the conference. She is coming off a 21 point performance against the ninth ranked Oregon Ducks.

Prediction

Oregon State is coming off an overtime thriller where they played what was likely the worst half of basketball this season, scoring just 13 points in the first 20 minutes against Washington State. Kat Tudor was cold as well, going 0-for-7 from downtown. Don’t expect the Beavers to repeat that kind of performance as they perk up their shooting percentage to do enough to get this one done in regulation.