The UCLA women’s basketball team started off its trip to Florida with a fun day on the water. But on the flight home, fun was the last thing on the team’s mind.
The Bruins played in the Gulf Coast Classic this weekend, losing to James Madison 77-67 on the first day, beating Grand Canyon 62-60 on day two and finally losing 67-49 to North Carolina State on the last day.
After beating then-No. 10 Oklahoma on Nov. 24, UCLA (3-4) expected a better showing than a 1-2 record at the tournament, but it’s not the record that has boiled coach Cori Close’s blood.
“Being 1-2 obviously isn’t what you’re going for, but that’s not what makes me angry,” Close said. “Ultimately I feel like we just didn’t play to our potential with our mental focus and passion with what we are doing.”
What doomed the Bruins this weekend was falling behind early, an issue that’s plagued UCLA for the past several weeks.
“We started off in a deep hole and had to crawl our way back,” Close said. “It takes a lot of energy to do that, playing the game uphill the whole time.”
With back spasms bothering sixth-year senior forward Atonye Nyingifa on the trip, she still pulled down five rebounds against James Madison and nine against Grand Canyon.
But in the North Carolina State game, Nyingifa recorded a season low, with just a single rebound. Close said she doesn’t attribute the team’s poor rebounding effort to Nyingifa, though, placing emphasis on guard rebounding.
“It’s just a result of what we’e been putting in prior to coming to this tournament,” said sophomore guard Nirra Fields. “Obviously we didn’t put in enough work or work hard enough to get the result.”
Nyingifa said the cross-country travel did not take a physical toll on the Bruins. They have traveled to New York and Italy before and played well, so she said she wouldn’t let the plane ride be an excuse.
It was more about effort and consistency on the court, something that the Bruins have not been able to find so far in the early season.
“We had a lack of mental focus and we came into the tournament too lackadaisical,” Nyingifa said. “We have a long way to grow and we’re really trying to look ourselves in the mirror and figure out our problems.”
If the Bruins are to turn it around, it will have to be together as a team. Close has stressed again and again that UCLA can’t succeed with just individual play.
“We aren’t good enough individually but we have plenty (of talent) when we play connected and as a team,” Close said. “If they don’t play to that identity, we’re going to lose and that’s the fact of the matter. There’s absolutely no margin of error in that.”