LOS ANGELES — Fans had found the UCLA women’s basketball team. They approached players for photos and autographs. They surrounded the Bruins during a night on which they wanted to have a team dinner out, in spite of their best efforts to remain secluded in a private area of the restaurant.
UCLA is among the most well-known women’s basketball teams in the country as one of four top-seeded teams to make the Final Four of this season’s NCAA Tournament. The attention can boost a school’s profile, but it can have negative short-term effects if not managed properly.
“It’s not any one thing – it’s small,” head coach Cori Close said, “but it’s the cumulative effect of all the things that can just take your focus a little bit off your edge. And I think if there’s one thing that we’re trying to do, it’s trying to get us to our edge so that we are ready to go into the battle that’s in front of us.”
Last season’s Final Four appearance and the spotlight that accompanied it left the Bruins starstruck. The feeling played a role in their loss to Connecticut, but the experience has lifted them to a new mentality ahead of their rematch with Texas on Friday night.
“There’s a lot of things that you wouldn’t expect (at the Final Four),” senior guard Gabriela Jaquez said. “You get off the plane and there was a pirate ship – which we really appreciated, don’t get me wrong.
“It’s just something that you don’t understand until you’re there. But super grateful for the experience, and we’re gonna be more prepared.”
Texas (35-3) beat UCLA 76-65 on Thanksgiving Day in the Players Era Women’s Championship, the only team to hand the Bruins (35-1) a loss this season.
Six-foot guard Gianna Kneepkens scored a team-high 17 points in that game and shot 7 for 11 from the field. Charlisse Leger-Walker shot 50% for 13 points, and Lauren Betts added eight points before leaving the game due to injury.
The Texas defense forced UCLA to turn the ball over 20 times, and the Longhorns scored 18 points off of those turnovers. They took the lead in the first half and never looked back.
“A lot of it is coming out and being the aggressors first, trying not to be reactive to situations,” Leger-Walker said of what will be different this time. “It’s really about us and how we prep this week going into that game and really taking the confidence from everything that we’ve learned and built on since that game.”
Slow starts have been an issue as of late. Fourth-seeded Minnesota trailed UCLA by just five points after outscoring the Bruins 19-16 in the second quarter of the regional semifinal and third-seeded Duke had a 39-31 lead at halftime in the regional final.
“You’re going into a war and each individual battle matters,” Close said. “Each individual battle at the point of the screen matters, each individual battle in how we sequenced how we’re going to defend certain sets matters – every little detail in the individual battles leads to who’s going to win the war.”
Texas is led by All-American Madison Booker, a 6-1 forward who is averaging 19.3 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game. She scored 16 points against UCLA the last time the two teams met.
Head coach Vic Schaefer, who owns a 103-12 record at Texas, has combined her talent with point guard Rori Harmon, who averages 6.3 assists per game. The 5-6 junior also broke the program record for career steals when she snagged six of them against LSU in early February, and she’s run her career total to 384.
The Texas defense has held opponents to 37.9% shooting from the field and 28.7% from 3-point range this season. The Longhorns have beaten each of their three tournament opponents by 20 points or more.
“Texas is known for their defense and their pressure,” Leger-Walker said, “and that’s something that, collectively, we as a team have to have a mindset of taking care of the ball, and everybody has to know their role in that.”
When UCLA’s offense is clicking, it’s hard to stop. Betts has hardly wavered in the paint with 17.2 points and 8.6 rebounds per game. The Bruins can also turn to just about anyone in the starting rotation if they need points, whether it’s Kneepkens (12.8 ppg), Leger-Walker (8.6 ppg), Kiki Rice (15.2 ppg) or Jaquez (13.4 ppg).
Angela Dugalić provides reinforcement off the bench and is averaging 9.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.
The Bruins have worked together to overcome the shock of the big stage while wiping away the hurt of last season’s Final Four loss and this year’s loss to Texas. Friday will show if they can really put it all behind them and get a shot at the program’s first NCAA championship, where things won’t get any easier facing the winner of the UConn-South Carolina game.
“No one’s gonna ever want to lose,” Jaquez said. “But we really take the tools and take what we’ve learned from those losses and apply it. And then just use it as fuel for us. We’ve only had one loss, but I think from that moment, we really flipped a switch and got better.”
NCAA TOURNAMENT
Who: No. 1 seed UCLA (35-1) vs. No. 1 seed Texas (35-3)
When: Friday, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Mortgage Matchup Center, Phoenix
TV: ESPN
