Performances like this win games and fans.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

As she left Mac Court, Bev Smith applauded the crowd of 4,651, a crowd that from as high as the second balcony was still applauding her women's basketball team, a crowd that had shrieked and howled and urged the Ducks back from a 20-6 deficit in the first half to a dramatic 62-58 victory over No. 5 Stanford on Wednesday night.

Behind their coach, Oregon players hugged their way off the floor.

Truly, this was a win for Oregon to celebrate.

For Smith, who deemed it "pretty special." For the Ducks, who recorded not only an improbable comeback against the team that symbolizes Pac-10 women's basketball, but their first victory over a team ranked as high as No. 5 in 21 years.

It's too early in the season to term this a defining moment. But it's fair to say that this win defines the best of this Oregon team, with its stubborn defense, and its blue-collar work ethic.

It's fair to say that this win sets a standard for the Ducks, and they know it.

Because it's not a breakthrough for Oregon to beat the Cardinal here. It happened as recently as last season, after a painful stretch of the season in which the Ducks had won only four of their past 17 games.

It was cool then, but it didn't mean much.

It could mean something now. For the moment, it means the Ducks are 9-2, their best start under Smith. For the moment, it means they're 2-0 facing three straight Pac-10 road games. For the moment, it means they're contenders.

The Ducks won't always be the most stylish offensive team on the floor. But that was the eighth time this season they've held an opponent to fewer than 60 points, and the first time anybody's done that to Stanford this season.

And while you can surmise that in a game in which the winning team shot worse than the losing team and both shot poorly - 32.3 percent for Oregon, 33.9 percent for Stanford - that there were a lot of rebounds to be had, it was still impressive that Cathrine Kraayeveld and Andrea Bills muscled for 15 of them.

Each.

"This is how we play," said reserve guard Kaela Chapdelaine, whose three-pointers on consecutive possessions in the second half finally pushed Oregon from behind to ahead.

"No matter who we play against, this is the expectation of how we need to play. ... We know we can play hard, and we know we can play like we did tonight."

Said point guard Corrie Mizusawa, who had assists on nine of Oregon's 20 baskets: "How we played tonight is how we have to play every game. We can't have any falloffs or pick and choose when we want to play for what team.

"We need to come out every single game with the same kind of intensity, the same kind of heart, the same kind of passion that we did tonight and we can surprise a lot of teams in the Pac-10."

It had been, the Ducks said, an intense week of practice, a good week, but then Smith said the intensity of this group has surpassed that of any of her previous Oregon teams.

Then again, it's not unprecedented for the Ducks to be intense for the annual Stanford visit.

It's not unprecedented for those games to draw crowds of more than 5,000, more than 6,000, more than 7,000 fans.

And so the significance of Wednesday night's win will be in where it leads. In whether the Ducks can parlay defense and team play into their first NCAA Tournament berth under Smith.

"We don't want to just get up and play hard against a Stanford," Smith said. "We want to play hard against a Cal. We want to play hard, with the same intensity, with the same intention, with the same purpose against every team we play."

And the significance of the win will be in whether the fans who have left the program over the past three seasons, in which attendance has dropped every year, from average crowds of 5,150 in Jody Runge's last season to 3,917 last season and 3,657 so far this season, respond to a team in contention again.

Wednesday night's crowd, fueled by a two-for-one Bi-Mart promotion, was Oregon's largest of the season, and it was louder than its numbers and, in the end, it was a crowd that needed to be rewarded with more than the Ducks simply coming close.

It needed a win, and it got it, and the reality is that this season will be defined, not by the single moment of the Stanford win, but by how many more wins follow.