UCLA Women's Basketball Closes Out Regular Season With Win Over Arizona State
For all but 30 seconds, the Bruins held the lead all the way through the second half.
Their showdown with the Sun Devils was far from a blowout, though.
UCLA women's basketball (13-11, 8-8 Pac-12) played Arizona State (12-14, 4-9) on the road Saturday, needing a win to avoid the program's first sub-.500 regular season since 2014-2015. Right off the bat, the Bruins looked to be in trouble, falling behind by nine points in the first five minutes.
That turned out to be the largest lead held by either team all day long, and UCLA battled back to win 59-52 in Tempe.
Things got out of hand quickly for the Bruins early on, considering they led by one through a couple of minutes. The Sun Devils hit four straight shots, including two 3-pointers, to grab hold of the momentum, but guard Jaelynn Penn slowed the bleeding by scoring her team's last six points of the opening quarter to cut the deficit to five.
The rest of UCLA's scorers chipped in once the second quarter came around, and after forcing three separate ties, guard Charisma Osborne finally put the Bruins back ahead with a 3-pointer inside of a minute. Osborne hit a couple free throws to build up a 34-31 halftime lead.
Arizona State stayed in it, though, never going down by more than two possessions while forwards IImar'I Thomas and Angela Dugalic continued to score. The Sun Devils finally took back the lead off a 3-pointer by guard Jade Loville, only for Osborne to come right back and knock down a triple of her own to put the Bruins back on top.
UCLA never trailed for the rest of the afternoon, but they traded buckets with Arizona State to where their lead was sitting at a mere two points with seven minutes to play. That's when Thomas drilled a 3-pointer and a layup – sandwiching another layup by Dugalic – to max out the Bruins' lead at nine.
The Sun Devils scored back-to-back layups to cut it to 57-52 with just over four minutes left on the clock, but that's where the score stayed until Osborne hit a pair of free throws with 23 seconds remaining. While UCLA missed its last three shots and turned the ball over four times in the final frame, Arizona State missed its last eight attempts and was unable to take advantage.
Guard Camryn Brown blocking guard Taya Hanson's 3-point attempt with 31 seconds left all but sealed it, and the Bruins picked up their first road sweep of the Pac-12 schedule in the process after also besting No. 12 Arizona on Thursday.
Osborne led the way with 17 points while Thomas finished with 12 and Penn and Dugalic each chipped in eight. Dugalic and Osborne hauled in seven boards each, but it was guard Chantel Horvat who led the way with 10.
As it stands, UCLA is in line to earn the No. 7 seed in the conference tournament, setting them up for a first-round showdown against crosstown rival USC in Las Vegas on Wednesday night. The Bruins beat the Trojans in both of their meetings back in January, winning the two games by 23 and 10 points, respectively.
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