(Jared Tay/All Bruins)
UCLA Women's Basketball Falls Short on Senior Day in Loss to Utah
The Senior Day festivities that took part before the opening tip, and they essentially continued into the game itself.
Eight departing seniors were honored ahead of UCLA women's basketball's (11-11, 6-8 Pac-12) Sunday matinee against Utah (16-9, 7-6) – guard Eliana Sigal, guard Gina Conti, guard Jaelynn Penn, forward IImar’I Thomas, guard Kiara Jefferson, guard Kayla Owens, guard Natalie Chou and guard Chantel Horvat. Those who were healthy and found the court were the driving force behind the Bruins' offense in their home finale – especially with junior guard Charisma Osborne missing – even if it ultimately wasn't enough to secure the win.
UCLA lost the game 75-70, despite leading throughout most of the first two-and-a-half quarters and battling to the final buzzer, as the Pauley Pavilion crowd waved goodbye to the group of graduating contributors for the final time.
Senior Bruins new and old helped spark the offense early on, with Penn knocking down a pull up jumper to get the scoring started and hitting a layup a minute later. Horvat assisted back-to-back 3-pointers by Thomas and guard Dominique Onu, then she hit a layup in traffic herself.
Guard Natalie Chou found Thomas in the corner for another 3, then she got in on the scoring by spinning through the lane for a contact layup. The 3-pointer by Onu was the only field goal not scored by a graduating senior in the first quarter – and even that was assisted by Horvat – giving the Bruins an 18-17 lead through one period.
The senior-heavy performance continued in the second with yet another Thomas 3-pointer, but the lack of an impact from the underclassmen started to let Utah back into it. Onu missed multiple layups, as did forwards Angela Dugalic and Izzy Anstey.
UCLA was able to narrowly hold onto its lead thanks to free throws by Penn and Thomas, going up 25-21 midway through the second frame. The Bruins missed six shots in a row after Thomas' 3-pointer to open the second, a streak that got slashed when Chou drained another triple six minutes later.
Anstey drilled yet another long ball one minute after that – her first attempt from deep on the season – off an assist from Thomas, Penn added some more free throws, then Chou found guard Camryn Brown slashing for an and-1 layup to cap off the half.
Going into the locker room beating Utah 35-27, UCLA had gotten 26 points from its seniors, who also assisted on eight more. Outside of a single free throw by Onu in the first quarter, every single successful offensive possession came to be thanks to a senior.
The Bruin seniors opened the third quarter by doing the exact opposite – setting up the Utes for points on the other end.
The 11 first half turnovers already set UCLA up for one of its most careless games taking care of the ball, and the start of the second half only boosted their pace. Penn, Horvat, Thomas and Chou all had giveaways in the first three minutes, which Utah turned into an 8-0 run that tied things up at 35 all in a matter of a few possessions.
The non-seniors got going to pull back ahead – Brown hit some free throws, Dugalic found Anstey cutting for a layup and Dugalic hit a layup of her own to make it 41-40 – but then Anstey left with an open head wound and Close went back to her senior lineup.
The turnovers popped back up not long after, and Utah used a pair of 3-pointers by guard Brynna Maxwell to go up 52-44 heading into the fourth and final quarter of action.
The missed shots also started to pile up for UCLA, which put together a streak of 10 straight misses form the end of the third that bled over into the fourth. Even when Chou ended the cold streak with a baseline fadeaway and catch-and-shoot 3-pointer, Thomas picked up an offensive foul that led to another triple off a turnover for the Utes.
A game the Bruins once held an eight-point lead in turned into a 12-point contest in the other direction. Chou continued to make a final scoring push in her final appearance in Pauley Pavilion with another 3-pointer, and Thomas finally got on the board in the second half with a free throw and second-chance bucket to cut it to six, but a push off called on Chou wiped out a jumper that would have made it a four-point game.
Maxwell hit another 3-pointer to end UCLA's mini-run, and the blue and gold trailed by nine with 2:25 left on the clock.
A layup by Dugalic got the Bruins back on the board, and a turnover by the Utes led to free throws for Thomas that made it 66-61, but Onu went down with a non-contact left ankle injury on the next possession, falling into a Utah player and inadvertently giving them an and-1 that made it 69-61 with 100 seconds to go.
The Utes missed four free throws in the final five minutes to nearly give the Bruins a shot to come back, with Dugalic cutting it to three again with 12 seconds left on an and-1, but Maxwell went 2-of-2 at the line to end it.
Thomas, Chou and Penn all broke double figures, combining for 46 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists behind Thomas' team-high 20 points and nine boards. The trio combined for 10 giveaways though, and Horvat and Onu combined for another nine before fouling out, leading to Utah scoring 27 off turnovers.
UCLA and its seniors will get one last weekend of regulation season action starting Thursday night against Arizona, with that game set to tip off at 6 p.m. at the McKale Center.
An at-large bid to the NCAA tournament seems to be out of reach for the Bruins at this point, and the loss meant they can't get a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament either. The only way for UCLA to make it to March Madness is four-straight wins in Las Vegas in two weeks time.
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