Walking off the court, surrounded by a sea of cheering fans in red, was not how UCLA seniors, Thea Lemberger and Atonye Nyingifa, imagined the outcome of the game.
UCLA women’s basketball fell to USC 68-54 in the second and final scheduled rivalry game of the season – a game that the Trojans controlled right from the tipoff.
UCLA (11-13, 5-7 Pac-12) watched USC (15-9, 8-4) throw the first punch with a three-pointer on the very first possession.
Senior guard Lemberger responded with a jumper right after, but disaster struck when UCLA ran out a full-court press and sixth-year senior forward Nyingifa rolled her ankle at half-court, not even three minutes into the game.
She limped to the bench to be tended to, and from that point, the Trojans began to attack.
“We just didn’t come out being the aggressor, taking it to ‘SC,” Lemberger said. “That kind of got us in a hole and we just didn’t have enough to dig out of the hole we got ourselves in.”
The Bruins played tight while the Trojans ran free. When Nyingifa checked back into the game three minutes later, USC led 11-4.
But USC kept pushing and UCLA had too many good looks simply bounce off the rim.
By halftime, the Trojans had pushed their lead out by 13, crashing the offensive rebounds and dominating the Bruins in second-chance points 11-2.
Whatever hope UCLA had for a second-half comeback was stymied by USC’s continued aggression on both ends of the court.
The 13-point deficit lead ballooned to 22 with 11:35 left, but the Bruins, led by their two seniors, never stopped fighting.
“At that point, I think there was a sense of reckless abandonment we needed to play with,” said coach Cori Close. “It was a now-or-never type of thing.”
Lemberger rained in a three to begin what would be the Bruins’ final stand.
Then Nyingifa, whom Close called a “warrior,” took over the game on her tightly wrapped ankle.
Without her usual lift or quickness, she still managed to score 10 of the Bruins’ next 13 points off of free throws, layups and a jumper.
Behind the sixth-year senior’s game-high 25 points, the Bruins upped their defensive pressure and crawled back to 10 points behind with 6:47 remaining.
The 14-2 run brought UCLA back into the game, but the Bruins just couldn’t sustain that energy. For the next six minutes, the two cross-town rivals traded baskets until USC completed its two-game season sweep of UCLA.
“In my years being here, we’ve won more than we lost in all sports against USC,” Nyingifa said. “It was really bitter for me to lose, especially by that much.”
Hobbling off the court at USC, Nyingifa said she could only think of one thing. It wasn’t the throbbing from her ankle or the coming days of pain and treatment, but that there was a chance for redemption if the two teams meet up in the Pac-12 tournament in March.