For the first 20-minute period, it seemed as if the Bruins were going to conclude the road portion of their regular season with a whimper.
The UCLA women’s basketball team did turn it around in the second half of its 61-45 win over Arizona State, but the Bruins had 12 turnovers, six from sophomore forward Markel Walker alone, and countless missed opportunities on the offensive end in the first half as the Bruins held just a 24-21 advantage.
At halftime, coach Nikki Caldwell asked her team why it was not finishing point-blank layups. The team had multiple back-door opportunities but could not connect on those either, fumbling passes away. Caldwell criticized her players when they waited for contact close to the bucket. She instructed them to think “and-one” instead.
As if on cue, senior guard Doreena Campbell found a cutting Jasmine Dixon for a wide-open lay-in opportunity in the first possession of the second half.
And the junior forward promptly missed. She then looked over to the sideline and shook her head, to which Caldwell could only shake her head in response.
“When I did blow a couple of layups in the second half, I felt I still needed to find different ways to help my team,” Dixon said.
Dixon certainly went on to pick up the pace, scoring a game-high 17 points to go along with 13 rebounds for the contest. As a team, the Bruins used a 17-0 run in the second period to break the game open.
“In the first half, we really wanted to pressure and speed up the game, but we needed to settle down,” senior guard Darxia Morris said. “We did that in the second half. We settled down and let the game come to us, and we worked smoothly on offense.”
The Bruins held the Sun Devils scoreless for a five-minute stretch and were able to replicate their defensive tenacity on the offensive end. Many of the shots were made close to the rim. It began with Morris, who had 13 points and four assists, shoveling a left-handed pass to redshirt sophomore forward Atonye Nyingifa, who converted the layup.
And-one.
“We did a good job running, especially Dixon, Walker, Nyingifa,” Morris said. “We just tried getting the ball to them, and they made easy layups. Transition is our No. 1 game, so we did a good job just pushing it.”
It was exactly this mentality that Caldwell was searching for at the half.
“This team has got to understand that they have to bring the intensity all the time,” Caldwell said.
In the last stages of the game, the Bruins grabbed four offensive rebounds before feeding Dixon down-low for a layup. And-one.
The No. 11 Bruins (24-3, 14-2 Pac-10) set a school record with 12 road victories on the season while the Sun Devils fell to 17-9 and 9-7 in conference play.
“I hope they understand what they have been able to do as far as our road schedule; we only dropped one on the road in the entire season,” Caldwell said. “I am very proud of them finishing off our road schedule, and we are just going to get better and better and get ready for next week’s games.”