It was a test UCLA women’s basketball coach Kathy Olivier
wanted to see if her team could pass.
Since standout sophomore Noelle Quinn had gone down with a knee
injury two weeks ago, Olivier had been anxious to see how the
Bruins would respond without their fallen star in a close,
hard-fought game.
On Thursday, Olivier finally got her answer.
UCLA (12-7, 6-4) gave Oregon (13-6, 6-4) all it could handle at
vaunted McArthur Court in Eugene, Ore., but with Quinn looking on
from off the court instead of playing on it, the Bruins dropped a
78-71 decision to the Ducks and continued their midseason
slide.
The loss prompted UCLA point guard Nikki Blue to call a
players’ meeting in which she plans to tell the team it needs
to change the direction in which the season is going and to no
longer use the excuse of Quinn not playing as a crutch.
“We have to get on a winning streak,” Blue said.
“Who knows when Noelle will come back? She may not be back
for the end of the Pac-10 season, she may not be back for the
Pac-10 tournament. We don’t know. That’s why we have to
take this upon ourselves now.”
Only two weeks removed from owning the top spot in the Pac-10,
UCLA dropped its fourth game in the last five, and fell into a
three-way tie for fourth place in the conference.
“I don’t think we’re in desperation mode
yet,” Olivier said. “We’re learning how to play
without one of our key players. Oregon’s a good team at home,
and we were right in the game.”
While it would be easy to point to the absence of Quinn’s
productivity on offense for Thursday’s loss, it was
UCLA’s performance on the defensive end and the boards that
hindered any chance of a comeback.
Utilizing its advantage with a bulkier assortment of frontcourt
players, Oregon pounded the Bruins on the glass, out-rebounding
UCLA 50-30.
And though the Bruins did a good job of containing the
Ducks’ starting five on defense, it was Oregon reserve Brandi
Davis who drove the stake through UCLA’s heart.
Davis scored a game-high 28 points off the bench and sparked a
15-2 Oregon run midway through the second half to give the Ducks a
sizable lead they would never relinquish.
“(Davis) does really well against us,” Olivier said.
“She missed a few in the first half, but then she got on a
roll, and that killed us.”
While Oregon found its offense in the most unusual of places,
the Bruins’ usually dependent marksmen were anything but
consistent.
Blue went 6-for-20 from the field while freshman Lindsey Pluimer
had one of least productive games of her young Bruin career, going
1 of 9 from the floor.
“Even with Nikki and Lindsey shooting the way they did, we
still had a chance,” Olivier said.
After traveling into enemy territory Thursday, UCLA will enter
slightly friendlier confines Saturday when the Bruins take on
hapless Oregon State (1-9, 5-14) in Corvallis, Ore.
Before her team left for the Oregon road trip, Olivier had said
she wanted her team to at least get a split.
That’s a test the Bruins can still pass.