UCLA women run away from Minnesota to reach NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight

SACRAMENTO — The UCLA women’s basketball team came out of the locker room dead-eyed and stoic; a level of emotion that outweighed the smiles, giggles and dancing that the Bruins had shown just prior to tipoff.

Fourth-seeded Minnesota had held the top-seeded Bruins to their lowest-scoring first half of the NCAA Tournament on Friday night at Golden 1 Center, and only five points separated the two Big Ten teams at the break.

“It’s just coming out with a mentality that you’re just going to take away what they want to do,” 6-foot-7 Bruins center Lauren Betts said. “You can talk about the little details that we made. But I think it all starts with just that aggressive mentality that we were going to come out and make things really hard for them.”

The Bruins locked onto that mindset to shake off a slow start and beat Minnesota, 80-56, in its fourth straight NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearance.

With their 28th consecutive victory, UCLA (34-1) advanced to face third-seeded Duke in a regional final on Sunday at noon. The Blue Devils (27-8) edged second-seeded LSU, 87-85.

Kiki Rice led UCLA with 21 points and shot 7 for 12 from the field while going a perfect 6 for 6 on free-throw attempts. Lauren Betts had 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting to go with five blocked shots and Angela Dugalić recorded a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds off the bench.

Charlisse Leger-Walker dished out a team-high eight assists for the second straight game while turning the ball over just once.

“When we were able to control rebounds and then get it into our guards’ hands quickly, that’s when you saw those great kick-aheads and decisions by Charlisse,” head coach Cori Close said. “It’s just great facilitation.”

UCLA led Minnesota 34-29 at the break. The Golden Gophers’ defense – though outsized – planted itself inside against the Bruins and forced them to shoot 0 for 6 from long range in the opening half.

From midrange in, however, it was a different story. Betts used her length to hit layups and jump shots over the opposition and finished the first half with 10 points.

Friday night marked UCLA’s third straight game of 50 or more points scored in the paint.

“We have a lot of versatility that allows us to spread the floor and score in different ways,” Rice said. “And teams, it’s going to be tough to take away everything. I think attacking the paint is definitely one of our strengths.”

Betts dominated the paint on the opposite end of the court, too, playing a key role in UCLA’s efforts to control the tempo of the game. Minnesota (24-9) scrapped for points on the inside while the Bruins threatened to chase them from the perimeter if they chose to work from the outside.

Tori McKinney was able to break through and make two 3-pointers in the second quarter, and she was part of a collective effort as six Golden Gophers scored in the first half.

Minnesota center Sophie Hart, who finished with 11 points, hit two free throws to cut the deficit to 28-25. The 6-5 Hart later got through Betts for a clutch layup that made it 30-27 with 1:14 left in the half.

“We honestly wanted to give everything we had in that game,” Minnesota guard Mara Brown said. “There wasn’t a possession that we weren’t still talking to each other and our huddles weren’t close. We kept our huddles close the whole time. We were still communicating. We just said if we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down with a fight.”

The Bruins flexed their transition offense at the start of the second half and rattled off eight unanswered points to open a 42-29 advantage at 5:48 of the third quarter while locking down on defense.

The Gophers scored 19 points in the second quarter, but saw their offensive output shrink to 12 points in the third as the Bruins worked to cut off dribble drives.

“We started to feed off of us getting stops,” Close said. “Then, when we got rewarded in transition a little bit more, that helped us as well. But I’m way more pleased with how we adjusted defensively. I did not think it was one of our best offensive games. We missed nine layups in a row at one point.

“Overall, I thought we just took care of the things that were under our control. We can play better.”

Leger-Walker logged her fifth assist that led to Gabriela Jaquez’s transition layup to start the third quarter, which signaled that UCLA was no longer to be stopped.

To cap the scoring run, Gianna Kneepkens flipped a pass to Betts, who spun around for a layup as defenders attempted to drag her down. Freshman Lena Bilić later got her teammates smiling again when she hit the Bruins’ first 3-pointer of the night with roughly four minutes to go in the quarter.

“Lena’s teammates are really excited about her and for her,” Close said. “Just watch how they react.”

UCLA kept the ball moving in the fourth and the lead stretched to 20 points when Rice grabbed a steal and rebounded her own missed shot for a layup. The Bruins held Minnesota to 37.9% shooting for the night, blocked nine shots and forced 15 turnovers to hold the Gophers to their third-lowest scoring total of the season.

It was UCLA’s second victory over Minnesota, after beating the Golden Gophers, 76-58, on Jan. 14, and their second win in Golden 1 Center this season. The Bruins, in their third game, defeated Oklahoma 73-59 on Nov. 10 in Sacramento.

When the final buzzer sounded Friday, the Bruins gathered on the court, put their hands in the air and broke the huddle without fanfare. The Big Ten champs are playing for more, and they simply moved one step closer to their goal.

“It’s March and we are really trying to focus on what’s next,” said Betts, whose team lost to eventual champion UConn by 34 points in last year’s national semifinals. “We have been approaching this very businesslike. We learned a lot from last year about not being happy with how far we get. We want to win it all. We will do our celebrating for this win, but we’ve got to focus on the next one.”