UCLA uses strong second half to bury Cal Baptist, 96-43, in first round

Los Angeles – Top-seeded UCLA shook off a slow first half to bury No. 16 Cal Baptist, 93-46, in the first round of the NCAA tournament Saturday.

The Lancers started strongly against the 32-1 Bruins, who haven’t lost a game since Nov. 26, with scrappy play, good defense and fearless shooting. With five made three-pointers, CBU trailed the Big Ten champions by eight points after the first period, and were behind 44-34 at the break.

But UCLA’s halftime “reset” made for a completely different contest the rest of the way, as they shut the visitors down and blitzed the hoops to outscore them 52-9 over the final two quarters.

Lauren Betts lead five Bruins in double figures with 22 points and 10 rebounds, while Kiki Rice added 18 points and Gabriela Jaquez, 16. The team snagged a whopping 62 rebounds on the night, while scoring 54 points in the paint and dishing 23 assists.

UCLA coach Cori Close admitted her address to players at halftime was “spirited.”

“It was unacceptable,” she said of their first half effort. “It’s not the fact that we missed shots…it’s when we don’t execute the scouting report; when we are lackadaisical; when we don’t communicate; when we are not connected. Those are the controllable things.”

“We made a commitment to each other that we would deliver on; that we could be dependable to do our job, and we let each other down that first half.”

But Close said that before she got to the locker room, her veteran squad had already been sorting things out among themselves.

“I trust them,” she said. “I don’t know everything that was said before the coaches came in, but I really do trust that they took care of things before I ever took care of things.”

“This is not a situation where the coaches want it more than the kids….so I don’t really have any doubt that they had already taken accountability, already been solution-minded, and it came from them first. I made sure that they knew I was disappointed too.”

Rice said she and her teammates knew what they had to do to clamp down in the second half.

“The coaches prepared us really well, and we knew we needed to pressure the ball and take away three-pointers. The half was an opportunity to reset and to gather as a team,” Rice said. “Cori came in pretty hot, and she was hard on us, as she should be, because we didn’t come out to the best of our ability.”

“As a team we have to get better, and we’ll be better (for round two) on Monday.”

Chance Bucher lead the Lancers with 11 points. Coach Jarrod Olson said his team did a great job with a tough opponent draw.

“I was really proud of the way our team played, especially in the first half,” he said. “That’s, in my opinion, the best team in the country, and we gave them all they could handle for 20 minutes.”

The Bruins will face Oklahoma State in the second round of NCAA tournament play on Monday. The Cowgirls beat Princeton, 82-68, in their first-round matchup.