Oregon women’s basketball has had a great start to the season. The Ducks remain unbeaten on the year (4-0) and have a signature win in a road upset over then-No. 22 North Carolina.

After the team’s latest 69-56 victory against Clemson, there is a better sense of the level of talent on the roster and what Oregon could do this year.

Here are the five things we have learned about the Ducks so far:

Jillian Alleyne has star power.

Earlier this year in a win against Hampton, Alleyne claimed the Oregon career rebounding record after pulling in her 1,363rd board. She passed Bev Smith’s total, which stood for 33 years.

Alleyne is the unquestioned leader of the Ducks by virtue of both her play and the support she shows for her teammates. No one is quicker than the senior forward at pointing out the accolades of the other players, even when she leads the way. Going into the game against the Tigers she averaged 13.7 points, 12.0 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game.

She is obviously a dominant rebounder and consistent scorer, but the big area of improvement this year has been her ability to make plays passing the ball. Alleyne has gotten better at picking her head up and finding open teammates when she is smothered in the paint, leading to good looks from three-point land for the guards.

“We are blessed to have posts that are very unselfish,” Oregon head coach Kelly Graves said. “They sometimes think pass first when they need to go to the goal.”

This adds a whole new side to Alleyne’s game, as defenses will have to think twice before sending the double-team and triple-team her way.

The bench has talent.

Although Alleyne has been the star, the difference this season has been the play off the bench. This is the deepest lineup Graves has had during his tenure in Eugene, and so far he has taken full advantage of it. Redshirt senior Liz Brenner, Mar’Shay Moore and Kat Cooper have all been regulars in the rotation, bringing a nice mix of defense and shooting off the bench. There is now confidence that the Ducks can stay competitive even when Alleyne takes a seat.

“We have a lot of depth; that has been said over and over this year,” Alleyne said. “If we are in foul trouble, there is always someone who can come in and step up.”

The starts have been slow.

So far this season the Ducks have struggled with slow starts. The energy has been lacking in many of their games in the early going, leading to bad shot attempts and laziness on the boards.

Against Clemson it took Oregon over three minutes before it scored a basket courtesy Alleyne. After a timeout to regroup, the Ducks came out and forced a turnover, then nailed a three pointer to take the lead.

For now, with the level of competition lower in the preseason, it isn’t a big issue, as the deficit is never so daunting that Oregon can’t fight back into the game. But come conference play, it may make the difference between a win and a loss.

The Ducks are turnover-prone.

Looking at the final box score at the end of the Clemson game, one stat stood out: the Ducks turned the ball over 16 times, which slowed their ability to go on runs and close things out. 16 seems like a lot, but it is much better than the season-high 27 turnovers they recorded last Sunday.

“Throughout the game we had a couple of turnovers, but we didn’t let three turn into 10, into 20,” senior guard Lexi Petersen said. “I thought we did a good job of staying composed.”

For his part Graves doesn’t see the turnovers as that big of a problem — accounting for the outlier against UC Santa Barbara. He said even the best teams average around 12 to 13, so as long as the Ducks finish with an amount in that region, they can live with it. The big difference Graves wants to see is the type of turnover committed, with unforced errors being the ones to avoid. If they instead come through the flow of the game he can live with them.

Point guard Maite Cazorla plays beyond her years.

Cazorla, the freshman guard from Las Palmas, Spain, has been a big surprise running the offense. She plays with a calming presence that is rare in such a young player; she acts more like a veteran leader for the Ducks. She plays with balance, sporting a good sense of when to push the pace and when to slow it down. Coming into the game she was averaging 9.0 points, 3.0 rebounds and 8.0 assists. Against Clemson it was her defense that shined, as she recorded three steals and a block.

As the season goes on it will be interesting to see whether she begins to call her own number more often, upping the number of shots she takes.

Follow Christopher Keizur on Twitter @chriskeizur