Jordin Canada has been playing against Kelsey Plum for a long time.
Both five-star recruits from southern California, they constantly battled each other growing up.
They have also praised each other profusely. Canada cites Plum as one of her favorite opponents.
But in UCLA women’s basketball team’s 90-79 win against No. 9 Washington (24-4, 12-3 Pac-12), Canada, who had gotten hurt in her last game, didn’t start.
Plum did, and immediately began by hitting two 3-pointers and attacking the basket. The No. 18 Bruins (19-7, 10-5) were down 16-15 and Plum had 10 points as Canada sat. UCLA’s 25 game home winning streak was being tested.
At that point, the junior guard Canada, fully healthy or not, was done watching her old friend dominate.
With two minutes left in the first quarter, Canada subbed into the game for the first time and knocked down a 3. She was back in charge of the offense.
“She’s one of the toughest kids out there. You know if she’s not playing there’s usually someone out there telling her she can’t play,” said Washington coach Mike Neighbors. ”She was in total command. Really really ran her team. Got the ball to the right people at the right time every time.”
Canada finished the half with 13 points as the Bruins led 43-36.
Hoping to give her injured point guard some rest, coach Cori Close didn’t start Canada in the second half either.
Plum and the Huskies jumped out again, scoring the first three points and seizing the momentum. Canada was back within two minutes.
“Coming off the bench didn’t change my attitude,” Canada said. “I was continuing to play my game.”
Washington did not allow UCLA to give a break to its point guard for nearly the rest of the game. The Huskies battled throughout the second half, bringing the game to within one point during the third quarter. As the period ended, Canada stole the ball from Plum and trotted down the court for the layup as time expired.
Canada would finish with 22 points and four assists. Plum, already the leading scorer in conference history, finished with 39 points while shooting over 50 percent from the field.
Canada said that she did a lot of rehab this week, and that she thought there was only a 50-50 chance at the beginning of the week that she was going to end up playing in this game.
She finally exited the game of the game with 12 seconds left, not giving her enough time to sit down before the game ended.
When the final buzzer sounded she shook hands with the other team and immediately went to half court to talk to Plum. Neither had said much to the other during the game, with both deep in focus, but now the game was over. With Plum graduating, they had possibly finished their last battle in college.
“I just told her how much I respect her and I respect her game and I respect her as a person,” Canada said. “Every time I play against her she just seems to amaze me. You think she can’t get any better and she always does. That’s just something that motivates me to get better, so I let her know that, and that I was proud of her.”