The calendar might not reflect it, but it was a crucial weekend
for the UCLA women’s basketball team. Coming off a
disappointing road trip up north, there began whispers that the
Bruins, a trendy preseason pick to make a deep postseason run, were
watching their season slip away. UCLA had dropped conference games
to California and No. 16 Stanford, and were badly upset in overtime
against lowly UC Santa Barbara. Coach Kathy Olivier and her players
were faced with the prospect of becoming perhaps the most talented
team in the country with a .500 record. Olivier knew that she had
to calm her veteran team and remind them that the second half of
the season and more than a dozen conference games remained.
“We weren’t playing good basketball, but I told the
girls that it is early, and we can turn it on starting right
now,” Olivier said. So far, so good. UCLA beat No. 9 Arizona
State 77-69 on Sunday afternoon to sweep both visiting schools from
the desert to inject vitality and hope back into the Bruin season.
The wins haven’t erased early season losses that have put the
Bruins in an uphill battle to qualify for postseason, but the
victories do give the team a little bit of breathing room and that
all important momentum for the last half of the year. While she
wouldn’t go as far as to say the wins kept the season from
coming unglued, Olivier conceded that the wins cured what had been
ailing her club. “We hadn’t been playing with any kind
of chemistry. Watching the tape from the Stanford game wasn’t
fun, but we turned things around this weekend with better passes
and people being in the right place on defense,” Olivier
said. UCLA (9-6, 4-2 Pac 10) rode the hot shooting of senior guard
Lisa Willis and junior standout Noelle Quinn throughout Sunday to
upset Arizona State (12-3, 3-2). The duo combined to score 47
points, and were 5-8 from behind the arc. Willis and Quinn were
exchanging baskets during a 14-0 run at the end of the first half
that provided the Bruins with a 32-20 cushion they would not
relinquish. The Bruins came into the game with a small chip on
their shoulders, as the team had lost its previous three games to
the Sun Devils. Arizona State has stifled UCLA with an aggressive
style of play that creates a lot of nicks and bruises the following
morning. “I am going to have a nice bruise on my bicep that
will last two or three days,” Willis said. “But
that’s just how they play, and I feel like I was dishing it
out too.” Wearing the black and blue as a badge of honor, the
Bruins relished the opportunity to dispel any notion that they are
a finesse team that cannot beat a strong, physical opponent.
“The best way to beat this kind of team is just worry about
ourselves and play our game,” Quinn said. “We got hot,
and we are difficult to beat when that happens. Hopefully it will
get us on a roll right now.” While the win restores their
confidence and keeps alive the dream of a championship season, the
Bruins know they have a grueling road trip ahead. But they are
applying a familiar philosophy to the rest of conference play,
which they hope will propel them back into the national spotlight.
“One game at a time,” Olivier said. “We
can’t afford to look at it any other way.” TREBILCOCK
LANDS IN OHIO: Former UCLA guard Ashlee Trebilcock has officially
transferred to Ohio State, starting the new semester in Columbus
after a short yet tumultuous career in Westwood. Trebilcock, a
sharpshooter who was highly recruited out of nearby Hart High
School, decided to leave UCLA after only four games. After
entertaining offers from a number of programs across the nation,
she narrowed her options down to Connecticut, Oklahoma, and Ohio
State. Her decision to become a Buckeye came down to a combination
of program prestige, a stricter coaching regimen, and playing time,
Trebilcock said. She will only become eligible to play starting in
January of 2007.
BENCH PLAYERS COMING THROUGH: Freshman center Chinyere Ibekwe
and senior guard Ortal Oren, who have assumed the top two spots
coming off the bench, have seen their playing time increase during
conference play. The two are making the most out of the
opportunities on the court with career games in the past week. Oren
set a career high with seven assists against Arizona on Friday
night in 30 minutes of play. Meanwhile, Ibekwe, who is slowly
becoming the dominant post player that UCLA has lacked in recent
memory, also played her best game in Westwood against the Wildcats
with 15 points in only 21 minutes. The emergence of the two players
has given the coaching staff the liberty to rest Quinn, Willis and
Blue during the game to keep them fresh in the waning moments of
the contest. Most importantly, however, Oren and Ibekwe are adding
to the UCLA firepower. “They give us more options on the
court, which allows our offense to really spread out,” Blue
said. “It makes everyone that much more dangerous because it
stops the opponent from focusing on one or two of us.”