After dropping consecutive games to Utah and Colorado, coach Kelly Graves held a team meeting.

He provided a blueprint for the rest of the season, which would go one of two ways. He asked his players what they wanted.

They could either go through the motions or fight for a potential upset. The team wholeheartedly picked the latter.

“It was definitely eye opening for everyone,” forward Jillian Alleyne said of the meeting. “Like coach said over and over, just go down swinging. We have nothing to lose.”

Oregon, which closed the gap against Utah late and nearly edged the Utes, has lost three games in a row. The Ducks are coming off an 84-69 loss to Colorado in Boulder.

“I don’t think many people figured we would compete for a championship or anything like that, but we’ve got a lot out of this group,” Graves said after Wednesday’s practice. “We’ve played hard and I think established a winning culture in terms of competing every day and doing all the little things it takes. Obviously, we want to win more. That’s the goal.”

The Ducks (12-15, 5-11 Pac-12) will certainly have to execute all the little things if they want to knock off No. 24 California (20-7, 12-4) tonight (6 p.m., no television).

Brittany Boyd and Reshanda Gray lead the way for the Golden Bears, who are tied for third in the Pac-12 standings. Cal has won its last five games.

Boyd — a top-15 finalist for the Nancy Lieberman Award (nation’s top point guard) — is averaging 12.9 points per game and 7.1 assists a game. Gray averages 18.2 points and 7.3 rebounds.

Boyd’s 367 career steals ranks first in NCAA career history.

“They’re long at every position,” Graves said of California. “They’re athletic. Reshanda [Grey] inside has an amazing motor. … Her motor is what makes her go. And her enthusiasm. Brittany [Boyd], what stands out to me, is her quickness. She’s as elite as anyone in the country.”

A win for the Golden Bears would be Lindsey Gottlieb’s 100th career win as a head coach at Cal. She could become one of three current Pac-12 coaches to have at least 100 wins (Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer and Arizona State’s Charli Turner Thorne).

As Cal’s coach, Gottlieb has not lost to the Ducks. The streak spans five games and the Golden Bears have won by an average margin of 17 points.

The Golden Bears are 13-1 when scoring 70 or more points. The Ducks are 5-1 in Pac-12 play when holding their opponents to 70 points and 0-10 when allowing 70 or more points.

“Now, it’s basically all or nothing,” Alleyne said.

The Ducks will host No. 19 Stanford on Sunday at 1 p.m. to finish off the regular season. They’re still eligible for the Women’s National Invitation Tournament (WNIT), but would need to sweep the Bay Area schools and reach the semifinals of the Pac-12 tournament in Seattle.

“They definitely have an advantage over us in height, but I think we can definitely control the tempo of the game because we’re playing home, so home court advantage,” Alleyne said.

Follow Jonathan Hawthorne on Twitter @Jon_Hawthorne

The post Oregon looks to end three-game skid against California appeared first on Emerald Media.