The ball just seemed heavier. It was a simple put-back that
carried so much weight.
Trailing by two with the clock running out on the UCLA
women’s basketball team’s weekend ““ and possibly
even its last chance to make a stand at home ““ sophomore
forward Lindsey Pluimer emerged from the baseline to grab her
teammate’s missed shot. There was nobody else around, and
Pluimer put the ball into the basket with one final swoop.
Pluimer’s put-back of freshman guard Tierra
Henderson’s missed jump shot with 12.2 seconds left in
regulation effectively sent the game into overtime, during which
the Bruins outlasted the California Bears, 90-87.
The win finished off a weekend sweep of Stanford and Cal that
propelled UCLA back into national relevancy and erased the
conventional wisdom of the Pac-10 standings, as the Bruins beat two
teams that stood far ahead of them in the standings.
More than anything else, however, Pluimer’s play gave the
Bruins (12-8, 7-4 Pac 10) an opportunistic break that had eluded
them throughout the season. With Henderson’s missed shot
falling right into Pluimer’s hands, UCLA finally got its
happy ending.
“Tierra had to take that shot,” Pluimer said.
“But when it went up I was thinking, “˜Just go up there
and get the ball,’ and I realized no one was near me when I
came down. I went back up with it as soon as I could.”
Just as quickly as Pluimer put the ball into the back of the
net, UCLA put hope back into its season with a pair of victories
overshadowing any previous hiccups or disappointment.
The Bruins 90-80 victory over the No. 13 Cardinal (14-5, 9-2) on
Friday night at Pauley Pavilion soothed the pain of a close loss at
USC last Saturday. But it was the win against the Golden Bears that
marked the turning of a corner ““ perhaps.
“The win against Stanford we really executed from start to
finish,” UCLA coach Kathy Olivier said. “But this win
was different. We’ve had a couple of games that we should
have won but didn’t. We could have broken down the same way,
but found a way to get it done in the last two minutes and
overtime.”
UCLA distanced itself from Cal (14-7, 6-5) early on as senior
guard Nikki Blue and junior guard Noelle Quinn forced an up-tempo
game, opening up the floor and creating easy transition baskets and
open perimeter shots. Quinn continued her strong play and finished
just shy of her first triple-double of the year, with 25 points, 11
rebounds and 7 assists.
The Bruins had 51 points at halftime, leading by as much as 11
points in the first half. It was only a half-court shot as time
expired by Cal center Devanei Hampton that cut the Bruins’
lead to 51-49.
In the second half, play slowed down considerably as Cal
switched to a full-court press that took UCLA’s guards out of
rhythm. The inside-out tandem of freshman Hampton and Alexis
Gray-Lawson fueled the Golden Bears’ second-half spurt.
Hampton’s 24 points were a team high, and Cal built an 80-76
lead with 3:55 to play.
“We didn’t come out ready to play, but we finally
matched UCLA’s intensity the rest of the way,” Cal
coach Joanne Boyle said. “We were in a position to win but
didn’t make our free throws. That’s what lost us the
game.”
Struggles from the charity stripe, with which UCLA has become
all too familiar, were yet again a deciding factor in conference
play. In the final two minutes of regulation, Cal missed five
consecutive free throws and gave UCLA enough wiggle room to come up
with a clutch play and grab the win.
UCLA outscored the Golden Bears 10-7 in overtime; Pluimer
finished with 17 points on an afternoon which the Bruins finished
with 5 players in double-figures; and the Bruins escaped with a
home victory.
The Bruins are now tied for second place in the Pac-10 standings
as they face a daunting road trip to the Arizona schools.