Winning breeds respect. This is something that the UCLA
women’s basketball team has come to understand, as the team
is back in the national rankings for the first time this season.
The No. 23 Bruins have returned to the top 25 after handing No. 11
Georgia an embarrassing 84-64 loss in the Loyola Marymount/Ayres
Hotel Thanksgiving Classic and then winning the tournament on
Saturday after beating Charlotte 87-71. UCLA (2-2) hasn’t
been ranked since a pair of upsets over then-No. 4 Texas and No. 14
Purdue during the first week of December last season. Shortly
thereafter, junior guard Noelle Quinn tore the ACL in her right
knee and didn’t return for the remainder of the year. The
team had been wondering as to why they hadn’t been previously
ranked. “That’s something that I haven’t really
been able to figure out,” coach Kathy Olivier. “But we
can’t really worry about if we’re ranked or not.
It’s always nicer to be ranked than not. If we win, things
like this take care of themselves.” In the beginning of the
year, just about every sports media outlet in the country pegged
the Bruins as one of the most talented teams in the country,
including ESPN and Sports Illustrated. Even Baylor coach Kim
Mulkey-Robertson, only a day before her team narrowly defeated UCLA
93-85 in Waco, claimed that Kathy Olivier has the best collection
of talent in the Pac-10, including reigning champion and No. 13
Stanford. Yet the Bruins had been on the outside of the rankings
looking in, although they had received the most points of any
non-ranked team in each of the first three polls. Despite the
attention, it took consecutive wins for UCLA to get into the top
25. “These polls mean very little right now,” Willis
said. “We are much more worried about where we’re going
to be at the end of the season.”
WILLIS HONORED: Senior guard Lisa Willis earned
her first career Pac-10 Player of the Week honor this week, being
selected after her Tournament MVP performance at the LMU
Thanksgiving Classic. Willis averaged 25 points in the tournament,
scoring a season-high 29 points against Georgia and 21 against
Charlotte two days later. She shot 71.4 percent (20-28) from the
field over the weekend at Loyola Marymount. She connected on 60
percent (6-10) of her three-pointers in the tournament. With 1,192
career points, she needs just eight more to total 1,200 in her
career, a total only 14 other UCLA women have ever reached.
LEZCANO BACK: After separating her right
shoulder two days before the Baylor game, junior center Consuelo
Lezcano has returned from her injury. Lezcano logged a combined 20
minutes in the weekend against Georgia and Charlotte.
PITTS OUT: Junior forward Julia Pitts is
recovering well from arthroscopic surgery to her right knee, but
isn’t expected back until conference play.