Oregon’s Ruthy Hebard may be flawless from the field lately, but coach Kelly Graves knows his No. 9 Ducks have some blemishes to clear up before the NCAA Tournament.

Most notably, Oregon’s struggles with defensive pressure against aggressive, athletic teams — like USC, which the Ducks survived Friday, and UCLA, which lies ahead Monday.

Oregon (24-4, 13-2) is alone atop the Pac-12 again in the wake of the No. 7 Bruins (21-5, 12-3) losing to No. 15 Oregon State 67-64 in overtime Friday and No. 14 Stanford (19-8, 13-2) losing to rival California 78-66 on Saturday.

“They all count the same, and Monday’s game becomes now even more important,” Graves said after the Ducks beat visiting USC 80-74 in double-overtime Friday. “I’m really proud of the team, great effort.”

Effort aside, Graves admits his team must do better than committing 24 turnovers that led to 31 points for the Trojans. Aliyah Mazyck made a career-high eight steals for USC, and Jordan Adams and Kristen Simon added four apiece.

“I don’t know what to say, they put a lot of pressure on you,” Graves said. “That’s what they feed off. We’re not the quickest team. We can’t be loose with the basketball, we can’t cross it over in front of somebody over and over and over again and expect a different result.

“It was pick-six, layup.”

Two of Oregon’s most steady players — Sabrina Ionescu and Maite Cazorla — were a combined 8-for-26 from the field with 15 turnovers and 10 assists.

The Ducks’ backcourt will have to prepare for a similar game plan from UCLA, which had won 10 consecutive games between Oregon’s 70-61 win at Pauley Pavilion on Jan. 7 and Oregon State’s win over the Bruins on Friday.

“We average 13 turnovers on the season; we’re one of the best in the country at that,” Graves said. “This is aberration. This is one game.”

Graves’ team had 20 turnovers in the first meeting with USC and 18 more at UCLA, but the miscues only led to 24 points as Oregon finished off its first-ever road sweep of the Los Angeles schools.

The Ducks will try to avoid live-ball turnovers against the Bruins, who are averaging 9.7 steals per game, second best in the Pac-12 behind USC (10.0).

“We can’t give them those layups in transition off stupid turnovers,” Graves said.

Ionescu finished with 15 points on 4-for-15 shooting against the Trojans with nine assists and eight turnovers in 46 minutes. The sophomore faces another difficult matchup Monday in fellow John Wooden Award finalist Jordin Canada.

During Oregon’s win at Pauley, Ionescu had 18 points on 5-for-15 shooting with nine rebounds in 37 minutes but just two assists and seven turnovers. Canada also struggled from the field (6-for-19) while finishing with 19 points, six assists and four turnovers.

“These are teams that she struggles with,” Graves said of Ionescu. “They really focus on her, they’re more athletic, they’re quicker and sometimes tougher than she is. So it’s sometimes not easy. We ran a lot of things to kind of free her up (against USC), some on-ball screens, some off-ball screens, but she didn’t get freed up very often. She’s got to continue to work at that. We’ve got to work at that.”

Hebard has been nearly perfect in the paint since being held scoreless in the second half of the home loss to Stanford on Feb. 4. The sophomore forward has made her last 30 field-goal attempts, breaking the previous NCAA record of 28, and is shooting 94.9 percent (35-for-37) during Oregon’s current three-game winning streak.

“I’m really blessed that I have really good teammates that pick me up,” Hebard said after making all 12 of her shots and finishing with 27 points and 10 rebounds against USC.

The return of Lexi Bando from a leg injury has also given the team a lift. The senior shooting guard made a clutch three-pointer in each overtime to deny the Trojans’ impressive upset bid.

“I’m a little tired,” Bando said after finishing with 11 points and logging 32 minutes in her second game back. “My conditioning is fine so I wasn’t even thinking about it at all when I was out there. I was ready to play.”