Every inch of success breeds that much more hope.
As recently as two weeks ago, the UCLA women’s basketball
team would have gladly accepted any place in the NCAA Tournament
with no questions asked. What a difference two weeks can make.
After beating No. 15 Arizona State and No. 13 Stanford to claim
the Pac-10 Tournament title and earning a five seed in the
Cleveland Regional of the NCAA Tournament, the No. 21 Bruins are
singing a different tune.
Making a splash in the 64-team field is no longer an earnest
hope. Making a deep post-season run is the focus now. There are
eager whispers of a Sweet 16 matchup with top-seeded North
Carolina.
“If you looked at the tournament last year, nobody
expected Baylor to win,” senior guard and Pac-10 Tournament
MVP Lisa Willis said. “They have a list of favorites, and
Baylor wasn’t on that list. All it takes is a team believing
in themselves, so we are just going to believe in ourselves. Nobody
expected us to beat Stanford or ASU, but we did.”
But before anyone can speculate about potential matchups or the
Sweet 16, UCLA (20-10) must face 12 seed Bowling Green (28-2) in
West Lafayette, Ind., on Sunday afternoon.
Standing between the Bruins and an intriguing second-round
affair with the Purdue team, which would be playing on its home
court, are the mysterious Falcons, who have quietly won a
nation-best 19 straight games.
Hidden away in the lightly regarded Mid-American Conference,
Bowling Green is one of the most precarious teams in the country.
It is ranked 24th in the nation and features four players who
average double-figures in scoring, but has remained mostly
anonymous.
“I don’t really know what to think of them,”
Willis said. “I have never heard of them before, and so I
have to treat this team with the utmost respect. But I don’t
know how to approach them in a tournament game like I would a
Stanford or Arizona State.”
The Falcons won their conference regular-season and tournament
titles for the second straight year.
However, the conference is considered to be a mid-major, which
makes projecting their style of play on the national stage the top
priority of UCLA coach Kathy Olivier. The Bruins played one of the
20 most difficult schedules in the nation, and where Bowling Green
falls on that spectrum is pure conjecture.
“They’re good,” Olivier said. “They are
solid and disciplined. The Pac-10 prepares us for this time of
year. I think that Oregon is a very similar team to Bowling Green,
a fundamentally sound basketball team.”
UCLA is back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since
2004, which ended in a first-round loss to Minnesota.
“Someone handed me a bracket, and said, “˜Fill it
out.’ But I can’t do it,” junior standout Noelle
Quinn said. “That’s something you do for the
men’s team. It’s kind of funny to do it for your own
team.”
Ever since a 77-73 loss to USC on senior day at Pauley Pavilion,
UCLA has felt the pressure to win the remaining games on the
schedule just to make the tournament. Now faced with a
win-or-go-home format, the Bruins don’t feel like much has
changed.
“We’ve had the win-out mentality for the last 10
games, and we have to keep that going because it has worked,”
Olivier said. “We have to carry that into the tournament.