Thanksgiving weekend was a time for the UCLA women’s
basketball team to reflect on everything it has to be thankful for.
And senior guard Lisa Willis has to be at the top of that list.
After dropping their first two games of the season, Willis and
the Bruins won the Loyola Marymount/Ayres Hotel Thanksgiving
Classic after defeating Charlotte, 87-71, in the championship game
at LMU’s Gersten Pavilion on Saturday.
Willis led the Bruins (2-2) with 29 points against the Georgia
Bulldogs (3-2) and 21 against the Charlotte 49ers (2-2). UCLA
ushered in the holiday season by soundly beating the No. 11
Bulldogs, 84-64, in the opening round of the tournament. Willis was
named the tournament MVP, averaging 25 shots per game.
The victory was sweet, considering the long faces coming out of
Pauley Pavilion after UCLA lost its home opener for the first time
since 2000.
“It was a great Thanksgiving gift,” UClA coach Kathy
Olivier said. “And what makes it sweeter was that it had less
to do with Georgia playing bad as much as we just played well and
beat them hard.”
It was a commitment to rebounding that turned around the
Bruins’ week. UCLA was out-rebounded by an embarrassing 52-27
margin at home against BYU, and spent the day before Thanksgiving
practicing rebounding drills up and down the floor.
The extra work focused on defensive rebounding and limiting the
opponent to only one opportunity to score on each possession.
The work paid off, as the Bruins out-rebounded the Bulldogs and
49ers 37-31 and 40-30, respectively.
“I forced down their throats the idea that we can’t
just live off our perimeter game,” Olivier said. “BYU
was a wake-up call, and we answered back by outhustling a team that
is bigger than us.”
UCLA didn’t just outhustle Georgia. The Bruins shone early
and often, setting a fast tempo that suited their guard play and
full-court press.
UCLA took a 58-32 lead at the 14:56 mark of the second half on a
jump shot by Willis, completing a 12-2 run at the start of the
second half. The team’s lead was never in jeopardy after
that.
On Saturday, Willis was again the catalyst for a streaking UCLA
offense that shot 33-62 from the floor. But Charlotte battled
behind the play of forward Andrea Davidson, who scored 19 points
and cut the deficit to 65-61 with just over five and a half minutes
to play.
However, Willis’ hot shooting sealed the victory when the
senior guard hit her final 3-pointer of the tournament that
increased the Bruins’ lead to 11 points with almost three
minutes left in the second half.
“Lisa’s ceiling is high, and she can do so many
things over the course of the game to help us win a game,”
Olivier said. “If it’s not a 3-point shot, then
it’s a steal or a pass. She is truly one of the
country’s best players.”
UCLA has little time to soak up the wins ““ the team faces
UC Irvine on Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion before a tough
stretch of road games at Clemson, Oklahoma and Pepperdine.
Back at .500, the Bruins are looking at a difficult
non-conference schedule as a test to see how well they can rebound
and defend against the nation’s biggest and strongest
teams.
Their ability to do that remains uncertain, but Willis is
confident.
“We are going to score our points,” she said.
“Our shots will eventually start falling; we know that we can
shoot. But we have to take more shots than the other team, and that
means we can’t let them get offensive rebound and get several
looks at the basket.
“The wins were nice, but we have show we can play physical
every single week before we are satisfied.”