Category Archives: Women’s Basketball

For the first 20-minute period, it seemed as if the Bruins were going to conclude the road portion of their regular season with a whimper.

The UCLA women’s basketball team did turn it around in the second half of its 61-45 win over Arizona State, but the Bruins had 12 turnovers, six from sophomore forward Markel Walker alone, and countless missed opportunities on the offensive end in the first half as the Bruins held just a 24-21 advantage.

At halftime, coach Nikki Caldwell asked her team why it was not finishing point-blank layups.

Once the dust settled in the desert Thursday night, there was an eerie sense of deja vu.

A month ago, Stanford humbled the UCLA women’s basketball team in a 26-point drubbing.

It was 2008 and the Tennessee women’s basketball team was one win away from claiming another national championship.

The full-court press is now known as a Nikki Caldwell trademark.
At the center of the press patrols an athletic forward, flying from sideline to sideline in the backcourt, arms outstretched, legs punishing the glossed wooden panels below her.

You’ve seen them walking around campus, but you probably haven’t noticed them.

They practice in Pauley Pavilion as often as five days a week, but they don’t sport the famed blue UCLA backpacks.

They are part of the women’s basketball program, but they’re men.

Who are these mysterious warriors of the court, those who practice but never play and are said to put the “men” in “women’s” basketball?

Unknown to most except the close followers of UCLA athletics, the women’s basketball practice squad, known as the scout team, is a group of approximately a dozen undergraduate male students who practice with the women’s basketball team and simulate its opponents.

That’s right, guys playing with girls.

Because of a lack of women on campus able to play at or near a Division I level, nearly all collegiate women’s basketball teams utilize male scout teams.

UCLA wasn’t short of scoring opportunities Sunday afternoon against the Stanford Cardinal, but when presented with them, the Bruins’ shots fell flatly off the rim.