They almost pulled off the upset.
But almost doesn’t count.
On Sunday, the UCLA women’s basketball team came within four points of pulling off probably the biggest upset in college women’s basketball this season, losing 65-61 to No. 2 Stanford, ending their five-game win streak and suffering their first loss in Pac-10 play.
Sunday’s game had no shortage of physicality, and as the Bruins stormed back in the second half after being down 20 points in the first half and trailing 34-18 at halftime, the drama was aplenty. The height of that drama came with 1:06 left in the game when UCLA pulled within two after a layup by freshman forward Markel Walker, the closest the Bruins had been since trailing 2-0.
After Stanford was unable to score on their next trip down the floor, the Bruins regained possession with 36 seconds left. UCLA ran the game clock all the way down to four seconds before a baseline jumper by junior guard Doreena Campbell was blocked by the Cardinal’s Jeanette Pohlen.
But according to UCLA coach Nikki Caldwell, who was standing about 10 feet from the play, Campbell looked to be fouled.
“I thought she had a clean look at it, and I thought she was fouled,” Caldwell said in Sunday’s postgame press conference. “But again, you never want the game to come down to one possession. The call just didn’t go our way.”
Campbell was not as vocal about the missed call as her coach, but she did think she got clipped on the wrist.
“It wasn’t a hard hit, but my wrist, she just touched it,” Campbell said. “But in most cases you don’t get fouls at the end of the game.”
But Caldwell was adamant in not blaming her team’s loss on one call, saying that officiating had nothing to do with the Bruins’ personal performance.
“A call should not determine our intensity or how we played in the first half,” Caldwell said. “The refs didn’t do anything to us that made us play that way in the first 20 minutes of the ball game. You’ve got to look at yourself and at your execution. It’s on us. It’s on us. I’ll never point fingers toward the calling of a game.”
After a first half riddled with poor shooting and ineffectiveness on the glass, UCLA came out of the locker room looking like a different team. The Bruins scored the first seven points of the second half and opened the half on a 16-7 run, pulling within seven at the 15-minute mark.
“I said a lot of things at halftime, but we really talked about them playing more together because when they do play together, they are more difficult to defend,” Caldwell said.
And throughout the rest of the half, UCLA continuously chipped away at the Stanford lead, but Caldwell’s squad was never able to take the lead.
One issue that has arisen in the past two games for UCLA has been the play of the freshman standout Walker. On Friday against Cal, Walker, who is usually a stat-stuffer for the Bruins, played only 14 minutes, scoring one point and grabbing two rebounds. On the season, Walker averages nearly 12 points and eight rebounds.
And on Sunday, it looked as if Walker was set to have another lackluster performance. She was held scoreless in the first half and played only seven minutes.
But in the second half, Walker regained her old form, scoring 10 points and playing a huge role in the Bruins’ comeback.
And over the weekend, Caldwell wasn’t shy in expressing her feelings toward Walker’s play.
“She’s got to mature in a fast way because she’s playing a big-time role for us,” Caldwell said. “In the second half, we saw the Markel that easily could be considered one of the best freshmen in the country, but on the flip side of it, we saw the other Markel Walker who I’m like, “˜Who is this kid?’ She needs to decide who she wants to be for this team because the one that you saw in the second half is the Markel that we’re counting on.”
Although the Bruins made a valiant effort and displayed what they’re capable of against a top-ranked opponent, Caldwell isn’t necessarily a fan of moral victories, commenting that Stanford, not her team, did what was needed to pull out the win.
“You hear that all the time about the moral victory, but the truth of the matter is that Stanford did what they needed to do to win the ball game,” Caldwell said. “We really didn’t play for 40 minutes. I felt we played 20 minutes of basketball.”