Thursday, February 6, 1997
W. HOOPS:
Both teams, which have struggled lately, look to gain groundBy
A. CinQue Carter
Daily Bruin Contributor
Four days ago, in Pauley Pavilion, the UCLA women’s basketball
team snapped a four-game skid with a victory over Oregon State.
Tonight UCLA hopes to continue its winning ways against Cal, the
only other team the Bruins have defeated in their last eight
games.
This time the teams square off at Harmon Gym, where Cal (6-12,
2-7 Pacific 10) has a very respectable 6-3 home record. Tied for
eighth in the conference with Washington State, the other
conference foe UCLA (9-9, 3-6) has defeated, Cal enters this
contest looking to snap a four-game losing streak.
The Bruins, on the other hand, are in sixth place in the
conference and are in position to gain ground on either third-place
Oregon or fifth-place Washington, when the Ducks and the Huskies
face off tonight.
Against Cal, coach Kathy Olivier will continue her pattern of
starting two juniors (Tawana Grimes and Aisha Veasley) and three
freshmen. Freshmen Maylana Martin and Carly Funicello have started
every game this season. The third freshman has varied between
Takiyah Jackson and Melanie Pearson. Pearson gets the nod tonight,
as she has in the Bruins’ past two games.
As usual, the Bruins will look to Martin to lead them on the
offensive end. She is the conference’s freshman leader in scoring,
shooting, free-throw shooting and steals. Martin is on pace to
become UCLA’s second-straight Pac-10 freshman of the year. She is
second in freshman conference rebounding only to teammate Janae
Hubbard.
While the Bruins and their junior and freshman weapons prepare
for a tough Cal team, they know that they will face a showdown with
the third-ranked Stanford Cardinal on Saturday. Since UCLA has let
close games with lesser teams slip away before, as with Washington
and Arizona State, this time they look to get the Golden Bears down
early and not let up, as they did with Oregon State.
"We can’t look ahead to the Stanford game because we definitely
don’t want to overlook Cal," Olivier said. "Every conference team
is tough at home and we understand that. We want to go in there (to
Harmon Gym) and maintain our intensity for 40 minutes. Period."