The most impressive part of UCLA women’s basketball’s 82-68 win over Cal State Bakersfield on Saturday did not happen on the court.
During a timeout in the first quarter, several players appeared on the jumbotron in a prerecorded segment in which they were asked who the best singer on the team was.
The clear answer: sophomore guard Jordin Canada.
When Canada appeared, she was reluctant to sing, before finally breaking into a tune. It was beautiful, silencing the crowd immediately. When she finished, the crowd broke into applause.
The team’s performance on the court, however, did not live up to the performance on the jumbotron.
The No. 24 Bruins gave up 11 3-pointers to the 1-7 Roadrunners, allowing them to shoot over 40 percent from range in the second half.
“We didn’t defend (the three) as well,” said coach Cori Close. “I want to give them credit for hitting (threes), but we didn’t do a good enough job taking it away.”
The team also struggled with turnovers, giving up 19. Several of these turnovers were during the fourth quarter when the Roadrunners cut the lead to 12 points after trailing by 21.
“When you’re not really focused on what the unit is trying to accomplish, trying to sort of read everything on the run, you’re a little lackadaisical, that’s what happens,” Close said. “You have more fumbles, you have less clean screens, you’re not doing things together, so everything becomes a little bit harder.”
The Roadrunners frustrated the Bruins by grabbing 14 offensive rebounds, compared to the Bruins’ eight. It showed that UCLA could benefit from the return of 6-foot-1 forward Lajahna Drummer, who has been out since Nov. 13 with a lower body injury but is set to come back later this season.
There were still some bright spots for the team. Redshirt junior guard Kari Korver had one of her best games of the season, knocking down four 3-pointers on six attempts.
“I just stopped thinking,” Korver said. “I’ve been thinking too much about my shot and that’s when you miss, so I was just trying to let that go and play freely.”
Canada continued her early season success with 25 points, including 14 in the first quarter. The sophomore guard shot 10 for 12, including two 3-pointers.
“Everyone is always going to overplay Kari and deny her because she’s such a great 3-point shooter,” Canada said. “It just opened up the lane for other players like myself and, you know, (sophomore guard) Kelli (Hayes) and (senior guard) Nirra (Fields) just to create and get it into the post.”
The team also demonstrated that they could score points without a heavy workload from Fields, who led the team in scoring last year. Fields took just five shots the entire game, instead choosing to defer to teammates like sophomore forward Monique Billings, who had 19 points. Fields would end the game with four assists and four steals.
“We’ve been able to score the ball really against every team. We really have not had trouble generating points on the offensive end,” Close said. “We can really put up points if we get stops.”