2025-26 Team Preview: Oregon

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Last Week’s Preview (Indiana)

Table of Contents

• 2024-25 Overview

• Departures

• Returnees

• Incoming Players

• Outlook

2024-25 Overview

The vibes were heinous in last year’s Oregon preview. The Ducks were coming off their worst season in a decade and it felt like the bottom may have been falling out entirely for head coach Kelly Graves.

Oregon finished the 23-24 season with 14 straight losses, including closing the season with a 79-30 loss to Colorado in the Pac-12 Tournament. After a year like that, and a bevy of transfers both directions, it was safe to feel extremely uneasy about the future of both Graves and the Oregon program, which was once a title contender not that long ago.

A new conference was apparently all Oregon need to bounce back into a respectable form. The 20 wins and 62.5% win percentage both matched the program’s bests since Sabrina Ionescu left for the WNBA after the 2019-20 season.

Despite the nine-win boost from the season prior, Oregon wasn’t a statistical marvel by any means. The Ducks did improve just about everywhere (+8.2 PPG, -4.2 PAPG, +3.5 FG%, +1.5 3PT%), but it still kept them in the bottom half of all the key offensive statistics within the Big Ten.

Oregon just had a knack of finding a way to win games. The defense was a strength, the offense had a top 50 turnover rate and the team, more or less, knew how to close. The Ducks were 7-3 in games decided by five points or less, and absolutely grinded out some victories against upper-level competition, like a 50-49 win over Iowa and a 54-47 win over Indiana that both happened in a five-day span of each other.

All of this led to a remarkable 16.7-point boost to Oregon’s Her Hoop Stats team rating. Graves transformed this team, and likely saved his job in the process. Beating Vanderbilt and giving Duke a true rock fight in the NCAA Tournament helped to solidify that as well.

Here's last year’s Oregon roster, sorted by Her Hoop Stats win shares:

Departures

There are six players gone from last season’s team, but not a single player through the transfer portal. That’s a remarkable change of pace for this program, who had 14 total portal exits over the last three offseasons.

That doesn’t mean the Ducks escaped without some major exits, though, as its top three contributors of Deja Kelly, Phillipina Kyei and Peyton Scott will all need to be replaced.

Kelly made some strong improvements to her game in the move over from UNC, and her increased efficiency and all-around performances were a huge factor in the Ducks’ improvements. Kyei is a disruptive interior force who shined on the glass and in the paint, while Scott was a terrific scorer at guard who was generally one of the most reliable options Oregon had offensively.

Nani Falatea will also be a tough loss, as she led the team in three-pointers made, a category Oregon already struggled in on the whole. Alexis Whitfield didn’t reach the heights she did at UC Santa Barbara, but she was a constant part of Oregon’s rotation last season and is more forward depth to replace behind Kyei.

Returnees

Oregon’s success last year felt like it always relied on a true team effort. A dozen players saw pretty consistent action, all of which chipped in at least 2.5 PPG while Kelly’s 12.2 PPG led the way. If Oregon beat you, it was usually Death By A Thousand Cuts (maybe her most underrated song ever IYKYK).

I think that’s going to make some of these larger exits sting just a bit less since so many returnees saw action throughout last season, starting with Elisa Mevius at the top. I was very high on Mevius last season, and she made a solid impact in her first season with the Ducks. She remains a menace on defense and was the team’s primary facilitator outside of Kelly. I expect a scoring uptick as her role increases this season.

Amina Muhammad started 24 games last season and will likely keep that role again with the departure of Kyei. She shot north of 50 percent and was a strong offensive rebounder for the unit. Ehis Ehute is only 6-0, but should get some consideration at forward after some really impressive numbers in limited run. Ehute’s 17.0 points and 13.0 rebounds per 40 minutes were very promising for the then-freshman, especially with 6.2 of those boards being offensive.

The other rising sophomore on the roster is Katie Fiso, who did play in 25 games but not with an abundance of minutes. She was a highly rated prospect and showed some flashes of a scoring touch and passing ability I would love to see more of this season,

Sofia Bell’s numbers declined after a promising freshman season, but she remains a natural three-point shooter the team could really use if they start falling. She earned 11 starts last season and is another capable defensive guard, but she has to perform better, specifically in Big Ten play, to earn a solid role.

Incoming Players

While not the nine-name haul of last offseason, Graves has brought in some terrific talent to fill in some of the gaps of the roster, starting with Mia Jacobs.

Jacobs was tremendous at Fresno State last season, dominating as the team’s top scorer and rebounder. She also averaged nearly two steals per contest, made 63 threes on great efficiency and also finished top 20 among all players in both free throws made (174) and attempted (205). So, yeah, I’d say she’s a good player.

She is joined by Washington State’s Astera Tuhina as the two veteran forces entering the team. Tuhina should immediately help with Oregon’s three-point shooting woes and gives the roster another capable passer to work around. If Tuhina can find the form she was in two seasons ago (43.1 3PT%), she could take Oregon to a whole new level.

Avary Cain is the third transfer and could be a massive one. She’s a former five-star who didn’t get much opportunity on a loaded UCLA roster, but has the potential to be a major riser in her second season.

The Ducks also add two freshman guards who look to have more of the scoring punch the team could utilize. Janiyah Williams is a high-ranking four-star with some big-time stats for her team in Oklahoma, while Sara Barhoum feels notable as another perimeter weapon addition to continue to help round out the offense.

Outlook

Projected Starters

• Astera Tuhina - G

• Elisa Mevius - G

• Avary Cain- G

• Mia Jacobs - F

• Amina Muhammad - F

Big Ten Finish: 12th

Oregon is placed in the same spot I predicted them to place in last season, but the general feeling around the program could not be more different than it was a year ago.

This Ducks team feels like it’s back on the upswing after a season that showed a lot of promise, and perhaps even found more wins than it should have as the ball got rolling. Keeping so much of last year’s roster in tact should only help that ball push further in the right direction.

The reason I don’t have Oregon any higher, though, is the lack of a clear top option that can lead them above the Big Ten foes that I will rank higher. Jacobs might be that, but the transition into a power conference isn’t always an easy one, so it could also be up to some of the less-proven high-ceiling options to pick up the slack.

Tuhina, Mevius, Jacobs and Muhammad feel like safe bets to start. They are experienced, fill a wide range of abilities and are solid on defense. That fifth starting spot is extremely up in the air in my eyes, so because of that I leaned Cain based on her size for a guard (6-1) and five-star background.

If Oregon plans to play much like it did last season — with a lot of contributors and an extremely balanced scoring attack — its roster appears to be in a great place. There’s a lot of potential here yet again, but this time around it doesn’t feel like everything has to break right to get the program back on track.

The Ducks look pretty strong for the second straight season, and hope to put 23-24 fully in the rearview mirror. I still have doubts on Oregon’s rebounding ability, but the additions to the roster feel like solid bets to help improve the team’s shooting — especially its three-point shooting. If the offense can become just a touch more dangerous, the NCAA Tournament should be fully in the mix for these Ducks once again.

Photo Credit: Molly McPherson, Oregon Athletics

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