The Bruins don’t panic.
They have played some of the best teams in the country and have been in very uncomfortable situations during games, but they stay focused. They keep things interesting. Just look at their biggest loss – a mere eight points. They don’t get blown out. They don’t panic.
In the No. 14 UCLA women’s basketball’s 65-61 loss to No. 8 Arizona State (19-4, 10-1), the Bruins (16-6, 8-3) did have plenty of opportunity to panic. They fell behind by 17 in the first half and couldn’t seem to stop a Sun Devil machine that was grinding through efficient offensive sets.
That’s when most teams would have panicked against Arizona State.
“You just have to know what’s at stake at that point,” said sophomore guard Jordin Canada. “Just in terms of fighting, back I think we did a pretty good job.”
It was a comeback that has become usual for the Bruins – they hit big shots and score in transition, striking right when the other team thinks a blowout is imminent. It was a rally against an Arizona State team that likes to pressure the ball on defense and utilize the entire shot clock on offense to prevent such swings in momentum.
With the Sun Devils thinking they were going into halftime with a double digit lead, Canada drained a buzzer-beater from half-court to cut the lead to eight. Canada was stoic. They weren’t going down easy.
“I think they responded great in terms of, you know you’re down 17 and at the crossroads, you’re going to have to make a decision,” said coach Cori Close. “Are you going to throw in the towel or are you going to show grit and perseverance and claw your way back? And we did.”
For the final twenty minutes, the teams traded shots. Neither team looked better than the other, and the result looked like it could have gone either way. The Sun Devils showed the offensive dexterity of their team, while the Bruins didn’t look at all fazed by the pressure that had bothered them early on.
“We just got to be strong with the ball and poise,” said senior guard Nirra Fields. “In the second half we did a better job of that.”
It was a win that ultimately got away from them. ASU’s Katie Hempen, who had a badly swollen eye from a collision early in the game, hit four three-pointers off of well-run half-court sets. They delivered when they had to. Just as UCLA did not panic when it went down early, ASU didn’t panic when things got close late. Though the Bruins overcame the early deficit, the Sun Devils rarely lose to opponents who don’t play at their best in all four quarters.
“We can’t put ourselves in that situation against a top-10 team. It’s really difficult,” Close said. “There’s no moral victories or, ‘Oh well, we played with them’ (mentality). That’s not where we are as a program mentally anymore.”
UCLA is not in a bad position. The loss puts them at 8-3 in the conference, they still have another shot against the Sun Devils at home and being ranked in the top-10 by the NCAA selection committee helps. The team does, however, seem to have a habit of falling behind early. Three of the Bruins’ losses have involved big early deficits that were later reduced, as did their win in Utah last Sunday.
Fortunately for the Bruins, when they get into positions in which others would panic, they don’t. That’s a quality that could take them far in the NCAA Tournament.