UCLA women’s basketball is back.
The Bruins open the regular season Friday night against University of the Pacific. The Tigers are fresh off a dominating performance Friday against San Francisco State, a game they won 91-42.
UCLA is also hot off a 35-point victory on Nov. 3 against Westmont.
The Bruins enter the season ranked ninth in the nation. Last season, UCLA finished the year ranked No. 10 in the AP Poll.
To remain in the top 10, UCLA will need the leadership of junior guard Jordin Canada, who has been playing well. She finished with 15 points and five steals in the team’s exhibition game against Westmont.
UCLA also has a strong veteran presence on a roster that includes seniors such as Nicole Kornet and Kari Korver. Both players will play a crucial role in taking UCLA deep into tournament play come March 2017, mostly due to their ability to shoot the three. Korver has a career 3-point percentage of 37.8 and Kornet is not far behind at 33.3 percent.
University of the Pacific, on the other hand, is coming off a subpar season in which it finished 6-12 in conference play and 13-17 overall.
The Tigers have proven that they can score the basketball over their first two contests. They scored 76 points in an overtime loss to Chico State on Oct. 30 and followed that up with a 91 point performance in their most recent appearance against San Francisco State.
For University of the Pacific, Friday will be a great opportunity to go up against one of the nation’s best teams in UCLA. The Tigers are led by junior guards Desire Finnie and GeAnna Luaulu-Summers, who each averaged double figures in scoring last season. However, they lost their leading scorer Hailie Eackles to graduation.
University of the Pacific is also relying on the emergence of sophomore guard Chelsea Lidy, who scored 15 points in just 14 minutes on a near-perfect 5 of 6 shooting night against San Francisco State on Friday. Lidy only averaged 2.9 points per game last season as a freshman.
The Bruins struggled to shut down the guards of Westmont last week, so it will be interesting to see how they handle the guard play of Pacific come Friday. Westmont guard Kayla Sato torched UCLA for 21 points Thursday.
UCLA’s next game will be Nov. 14 at Baylor. Baylor currently ranks second in the AP Top 25 poll and fourth in the USA Today Coaches Poll, setting up a top 10 matchup in the first week of the season.
Last season, the Lady Bears finished 37-2 after losing to Oregon State in the Elite 8.
Baylor, however, comes into the season with a revamped roster that includes some of the nation’s top recruits.
One of those recruits, freshman forward Lauren Cox, was No. 1 on ESPN’s Top 100 list for 2016 recruits. She chose Baylor over UCLA and will now have the opportunity to showcase to the Bruins what they missed out on.
Baylor also enters the new year with freshman guard Natalie Chou, who was ranked 8th out of all 2016 recruits. Chou and UCLA guard Jordin Canada will be a key matchup to watch on Friday.
The Bears are going to be a tough matchup for the Bruins and it does not help that the game will played on the road. UCLA will need to find a way to slow down Baylor’s potent roster early if they want to come away with an early statement win.