It had tightened its grip on Nikki Blue a little more with each
passing year.
Moments after her club’s 74-61 win over Bowling Green in
the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, the senior guard no
longer felt that lingering pain.
“It’s a big monkey to get off my back,” Blue
said.
UCLA women’s basketball captured its first tournament win
in seven years, and Blue no longer has to answer questions about
why her team hadn’t experienced any success past February.
The fifth-seeded Bruins (21-10) beat the 12th-seeded Falcons (28-3)
in a game that has mirrored Blue’s team over her four years
““ inconsistent, but always entertaining.
The Bruins were dazzling at times, as the trio of Blue, junior
guard Noelle Quinn and senior guard Lisa Willis revealed an
athleticism Bowling Green hadn’t seen all year. They were
also uninspiring at times, losing focus on defense and committing
frivolous turnovers.
“That wasn’t our best basketball,” Blue said.
“But we did what we needed to do to win the game.”
UCLA is now set to play fourth-seeded Purdue on Tuesday night on
the Boilermakers’ home court in West Lafayette, Ind. All four
favorites in the top half of the Cleveland subregional advanced, as
top-seeded North Carolina will take on eighth-seeded Vanderbilt in
the Commodores’ home arena.
With all the prospects of moving through a daunting bracket, the
Bruins just wanted to avoid upset and get through the first game
relatively unscathed.
“We were all anxious to get back (to the tournament), but
we got all the jitters of out of the way,” Blue said.
“We are looking forward to Purdue.”
Bowling Green had won a nation-best 19 straight games and had
held its opponent to under 70 points in each game this season. Both
streaks were snapped by UCLA, which used its speed and strength in
transition to send Bowling Green home with a double-digit loss in
the first round.
Purdue (25-6) offers a bigger challenge, with its talent and
home-court advantage. Whereas the inside presence of Ali Mann and
Liz Honegger helped Bowling Green earn some easy points in the
paint, it also meant that UCLA had many more athletic and versatile
players on the court at any given moment of the game.
The Bruins won’t have that luxury in the second round. Aya
Traore and Erin Lawless lead an explosive Boilermaker team that
erased a 10-point deficit to Missouri State at halftime, quickly
turning it into a 23-point lead midway through the second half.
Traore finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds, while Lawless
chimed in with 19 points.
“They are a much better basketball team (than Bowling
Green), and we are going to have to play better,” UCLA coach
Kathy Olivier said. “We scored 74 points and didn’t
play well (on Sunday), and we played loose in the second half.
“We talked about the first game being a build-up to (the)
Purdue game, and that’s exactly what it was. Now we have to
take it up a notch.”
It will be an emotionally charged game for Olivier. She was
excited last week at the prospect of facing Purdue coach Kristy
Curry, who she characterized as “one of my three closest
friends in women’s basketball.”
As her team took the court in warmups, Olivier hugged Curry by
the sidelines after Purdue’s win over Missouri State.
“I have the utmost respect for Kristy as a coach (for)
what she’s done with that program,” Olivier said.
“We each want to win that game, but afterwards we’ll
still be friends. It’ll be easier to shake hands with her
after a win, though.”
There is some history between UCLA and Purdue, which will be
meeting for the third time in three years. In December 2003, the
then-No. 8 Boilermakers won a thrilling 58-57 game over the Bruins
in Indianapolis when Beth Jones hit a 3-pointer with 1.8 seconds
left. The Bruins evened the score last season when they defeated
the Boilermakers 70-64 in Pauley Pavilion.
“It really doesn’t matter that it’s their home
court,” Willis said. “People can make a big deal about
it, but we know that if we stay focused, we can beat anybody on any
court.”