In an exhibition game against Team Concept yesterday, UCLA
looked to get back on track after dropping its season-opener last
week. With a second-half offensive explosion and a defensive
clamp-down late, the Bruins did exactly what they set out to do,
posting a 79-73 victory over the visitors at Pauley Pavilion.
With help from Tierra Henderson and Chinyere Ibekwe, neither of
whom played against Love and Basketball last week, the Bruins built
a late-second-half lead and held on for the win despite a rocky
first half. After last week’s loss and defensive lapses, the
Bruins wanted to play a more disruptive style of defense and
tighten up on offense.
“That was really (coach Kathy Olivier) and her focus in
practice of really being active on the ball and speaking up in help
(situations),” junior forward Lindsey Pluimer said.
“That was just one of our main focuses this week and I
thought we did a lot better job this week.”
Despite giving up 13 turnovers in the first half on their way to
a seven-point halftime deficit, the Bruins righted the ship and
came out strong in the second half. They shot 54.5 percent from the
floor, put up 52 points, and built a 12-point lead with five
minutes remaining ““ all with several different combinations
of line-ups.
“We’re still testing things out with who plays well
with who, who plays well in crucial moments,” Pluimer said.
“It’s still a young team; we’re still figuring
ourselves out.”
Because yesterday’s game was only an exhibition, the
Bruins focused on their own game and did not try to tailor their
playing style to the opposition, especially with Henderson and
Ibekwe playing for the first time.
“It is about us right now,” Olivier said.
“It’s more about the defense. We can’t allow over
70 points. We just can’t do that. We’re doing better
things defensively but now we want to make sure that we get
everyone in the mix. It was nice to have Tierra and Ray-Ray
(Ibekwe) on the floor. They brought this tenacity and this
intensity to our defense and we were much more
aggressive.”
After struggling in transition last week, the Bruins came out of
the half and pushed the tempo, running some full-court press and
capitalizing on easy baskets.
“Our focus more was to get after it defensively and look
to push the ball up the floor,” Olivier said.
“That’s why we had more points in the second half. We
were a better transition team.”
Senior Noelle Quinn took advantage of the up-tempo game,
dropping 18 points and racking up 10 rebounds, both game highs.
The Bruins open the regular season next Sunday against UC Santa
Barbara at Pauley Pavilion.