UCLA Women's Basketball: Bruins Blow Pac-12 Tournament Semis Vs USC
Your UCLA Bruins' eighth (and last, thanks to the impending dissolution of the conference) Pac-12 Tournament Semifinal matchup in the past nine seasons ended in disappointment, following a poor-shooting, defense-heavy double-overtime clash against their crosstown nemeses, the USC Trojans, on Thursday, 80-70.
UCLA mounted a valiant attempt, but botched some critical late-game moments in both regulation and the game's first bonus period, before the program ran out of gas during the second bonus period.
Although All-Pac-12 Bruins center Lauren Betts did score the inaugural bucket of the bout...
...that was where UCLA's good fortunes would end in the first quarter. USC would go on to outscore the Trojans 24-6 the rest of the way (i.e. 24-8 in the full frame, including Betts' opening jumper). Watkins alone outscored the entire UCLA squad, in fact, 9-8.
The Bruins were not to be denied, however, and rode a 23-13 second quarter advantage to finish the opening half just two possessions behind the Trojans, 37-31. UCLA even, ever-so-briefly, nabbed a one-point lead late into the second quarter, 31-30.
UCLA gradually chipped away at USC's advantage throughout the second half, enjoying 14-11 scoring edges in both the third and fourth quarters.
Bruins power forward Angela Dugalic finally knotted up the contest with 1:35 remaining in regulation.
Both teams mostly hoped that their top scorers (Watkins and Betts) would take them home during the game's final 95 seconds... but neither delivered. UCLA had a chance to win things outright in the contest's last five seconds, but neglected to even attempt a field goal. The bout was tied up 59-59 at the end of regulation, and headed to its first overtime.
In that first overtime period, both teams submitted modest offensive runs against ferocious defensive performances. Things bogged down at the end of the period for UCLA again, however. Betts secured a defensive rebound of a missed JuJu Watkins triple try with a second remaining, and the Bruins burned a timeout to set up a shot. Instead of feeding Betts inside for what would have been an automatic lay-in, UCLA appeared to panic and once again be unaware of the shot clock, letting time expire without getting off a look -- again. To be fair, UCLA wasn't the only team that should have regretted the way that quarter ended. Watkins and the rest of USC had 18 seconds after a timeout to score a winning bucket, and only needed to win by a point, so the team could have driven inside for a far more efficient layup instead of hinging on Watkins making a less efficient three point attempt).
A 6-1 USC tear at the start of the second overtime essentially ended the competition, and UCLA saw itself outscored 13-3 during the quarter.
Four Bruins finished with double-digit scoring, led by All-Pac-12 shooting guard Charisma Osborne's 21 points on a brutally inefficient 5-of-18 shooting from the field (2-of-8 from long range) and 9-of-10 from the foul line (no one else took more than two charity stripe attempts).
Betts, meanwhile, notched 17 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the floor, plus a whopping 18 rebounds (13 defensive), one assist, one steal and one block. Sophomore point guard Kiki Rice had 11 points and six assists, and Dugalic logged 10 points. UCLA shot a brutal 25-of-79 from the field in the loss (31.6%).
UCLA will head home, and await its NCAA Tournament seeding fate.
USC, meanwhile, will move on to face the No. 1-seeded Stanford Cardinal on Sunday afternoon.