INDIANAPOLIS — With 6:26 left in the second quarter at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, No. 2 UCLA women’s basketball was in a position it rarely has been in Big Ten play.
Losing.
Bruins coach Cori Close called a timeout and top-seeded UCLA scored the next 15 points going into halftime. From there, No. 8 seed Washington was far from out of it, but it was the moment that awoke the Bruins during an eventual 78-60 win to advance to the Big Ten semifinal against Ohio State at 11 a.m. PST on Saturday.
“Coaches and players have to take responsibility that here we are in March, and we came out with less than our best focus and effort,” Close said. “That’s something we got to take care of right away.”
It turned out to be the Bruins’ 23rd straight win overall after last losing on Nov. 26.
UCLA, which is now 19-0 in Big Ten action, started slow, missing five consecutive shots during a five-plus minute scoring drought in the first quarter. Their six first-quarter points were a season low.
The Huskies extended a 10-point lead into the second quarter and then came the pause. Out of the timeout, UCLA ran a play to Lauren Betts (26 points, 8 rebounds, 13-for-20) in the paint and she sparked the next run.
“I knew I wanted to win this game, and I was going to do whatever the team needed,” Betts said. “Today they were playing me with single coverage for most of the game, so that worked in my benefit and I just took advantage of it and was aggressive for the entire game.”
The Huskies wouldn’t score for the final 6:10 of the first half while the Bruins’ lead grew.
Washington (21-10, 11-9), which defeated No. 9 seed USC on Thursday to advance to the quarterfinal, struggled to respond to UCLA’s second-half surge and trailed by as much as 19 in the fourth quarter.
Washington went up briefly in the third quarter, powered by 18 points from guard Avery Howell, but the Bruins finally found their rhythm shortly after. UCLA shot 54% overall from the field.
“We know the little things are going to matter,” UCLA guard Gabriela Jaquez (five points) said after the win. “We’ve been working on that.”
UCLA, which boasts the best three-point percentage in the Big Ten, didn’t make any treys in the first half and didn’t knock any down until Kiki Rice’s at the 5:27 mark in the third quarter. Rice finished with 18 points and six assists, joining Betts as a key catalyst for the Bruins.
The Bruins found ways to score, but they tied for the worst three-point shooting performance of the season (1-for-10).
“They were the more aggressive team,” Close said. “They played harder than us in the first quarter and put us on our heels. … It wasn’t our best.”
The Bruins have played just a handful of competitive games in their conference this season, with a 69-66 win over Michigan last month and an 82-75 victory at Ohio State in December their closest contests.
UCLA’s 28.3 point average margin of victory is the fifth-best in the nation and many of those wins have come against opponents in arguably the deepest conference in the country.
Even in the postseason, the Bruins see staying close for too long as a failure. With only tougher opponents ahead, they’re trying to stay focused on what to fix even in their routs.
“There’s a lot of seniors here who want to go to the next level,” wing Charlisse Leger-Walker (10 points, 5-for-8) said. “It can be easy to slip into [thinking ahead.] But I think we’ve done a good job staying present.”
Eventually on Friday, UCLA ran it up again. It took longer to get there than they’d prefer during the rest of March.
But for a team that has faced little on-court adversity all season, the Bruins are finding the flaws where they can. On Friday, there were at least a few.
“I don’t really believe in survive and advance if you’re going to try to go win this thing,” Close said. “It has to be thrive and advance, and it has to be we’re playing our best basketball. We attack. … We have to get back to that, really quick.”
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