By Bruce Tran
BRUIN SPORTS STAFF
btran@media.ucla.edu
Fresh off the most emotional week the team has had to endure
this season, the UCLA women’s basketball team is hoping
Sunday’s dramatic win over Cal will be the start of something
big.
“We are just drained, emotionally and physically,”
guard Nikki Blue said. “It’s been an unbelievable week
full of ups and downs. Our spirit is up now, though.”
During the course of the past week, UCLA (9-9, 4-5 Pac-10) heard
the news of the death of Cal’s Alisa Lewis and pushed Pac-10
leader Stanford to overtime before losing, only to come away with a
come-from-behind win over Cal on Blue’s last second lay-in
.
Tonight, the Bruins will host Oregon (10-9, 2-7).
In the Cal game, the Bruins trailed by six with two minutes to
go. It was eerily similar to so many situations this season, when
three of UCLA’s losses have come by a total of six
points.
But this time, the Bruins hit the big shots down the
stretch.
“We needed a feel-good win,” coach Kathy Olivier
said. “It’s happened so many times this season where
we’ve fallen just short of the victory. Cal really competed,
but we didn’t give up, and we prevailed.”
One thing that UCLA may look to do more and more is employ the
full-court press and trap. The defensive pressure down the stretch
allowed the Bruins to pull out the win over the Golden Bears,
forcing 14 second-half turnovers.
“Our defense carries us, and we’re just so
quick,” Blue said. “I don’t think that
there’s a single team out there that can hang with us full
court, especially with the kind of guards we have.”
UCLA defeated the Ducks earlier in the season, 63-57, behind
Gennifer Arranaga’s 22 points. Oregon star forward Cathrine
Kraayeveld is still out with an ACL injury, and her loss has been
felt by the Ducks. In her absence, Andrea Bills and Brandi Davis
have picked up the pace, but the Ducks have had their problems in
the paint. That will probably be neutralized against the Bruins,
who have had problems of their own.
Still, the 6-foot-3-inch Bills has Olivier worried.
“We can take away their post, but Oregon has shooters on
the perimeter as well,” Olivier said. “Posts tend to
score on us a little.”
Even more important to Olivier is that UCLA starts to put a
string of good games together. The Bruins have had only one winning
streak this season.
“We need to take what happened against Cal and play
another good game,” Olivier said. “If we can do that,
then we can start to build something special for the second half of
the Pac-10.”