Los Angeles, CA – No. 1 UCLA may have expected a duel with No. 9 Richmond, but a surprise too many was a tied halftime score withstanding All American Lauren Betts dominance before her Bruins teammate lit a fire in the second half leaving in a bittersweet taste for the Spartans March Madness experience.
Following a 84-67 win that advanced UCLA to their third consecutive Sweet 16, the Bruins coach Cori Close expected Richmond to be a difficult matchup given her respect for their coach Andy Rousell and precedence his team established in their previous tournament games.
“I knew this was going to be a really tough game and really challenging how we like to play,” coach Close said. “They spread you out and they shoot it so well. They’re very selfless and just a great team.”
Richmond lost one of two quarters per half, including a double digit deficit in the third quarter led by KiKi Rice catching on fire behind the arc, hitting three out of four. that put a monkey wrench in Richmond’s strategy causing it to backfire with embracing and settling for Betts’ dominance while attempting to limit the rest of the Bruins to be non-factors.
“I get a lot of catch and shoot threes because a lot of teams send a lot of bodies to Lauren,” Rice said. “Just being ready to knock them down [tonight] and shoot it with confidence because I work on it a lot and just got to continue to show it.”
Betts added how she felt honored to play with Rice rather than against her and was happy she took those shots after kicking it out to her from the post. Betts and Rice combined for 18 points of 29 in that key third quarter surge to go ahead 65-43 entering the fourth quarter. Angela Dugalic hit a crowd energizing three-pointer off of an assist from Betts, who next completed her own three-point play. Londynn Jones came alive as well in the third, knocking down two three-pointers followed by Dugalic with another triple before Betts ran up nine consecutive points to put the Bruins by 22.
“Obviously their [Betts and Rice] statistical lines were ridiculous but in our locker room we called out people like Kendall [Dudley] who had assists and rebounds, so efficient and a spark in 12 minutes of play. Elina [Aarnisalo] came in and gave London a breather, coach Close lauded. “Janiyah [Barker] had four assists, zero turnovers and eight rebounds. We have these two big dogs up here and they do so much for us but they know it’s our team that matters.”
Bruins dished out 25 assists and only five turnovers at the end of the game. Betts earned her 17th double-double of the season, scoring 30 points from 14 out of 17 attempts plus snatching down 14 rebounds, nine of them on the offensive end outnumbering Richmond’s team. Rice finished the game with 23 points and seven assists, while committing only one turnover as UCLA’s primary floor general.
“Grit especially in March Madness is super important,” Betts explained. “Coach Cori has held us accountable and she’s not changing the standards so if you’re not doing what you need to do you’re going to come out and that is just going to push us individually to do what we need to do to win.”
After sharing post game about one of her most encouraging conversations earlier that day between Richmond coach and herself, coach Close credited their team for being fierce competitors then complimented her team’s response and how they carried themselves to advance in the tournament.
“We made some slight adjustments on about three different actions out of halftime and they adjusted to all of them,” coach Close pointed out. “I just loved how the crowd got behind that intensity. I thought it was really a big deal and we needed that energy for them to just get excited about how we were defending…really proud of two things from our team, our selflessness and our commitment to our defense.”
Looking ahead to UCLA’s sweet sixteen matchup against Ole Miss in Spokane Washington, Coach Close insinuated on how she had followed Ole Miss since the beginning of their season in Paris, a close battle where they ended up losing to another Southern California team, USC.
“We’re planning ahead all the time and we’ve actually watch Ole Miss a lot because Christini Wally [Christeen Iwuala]
Is on their team and we love her cause she use to be a Bruin,” coach Close continued. “We’ve tuned in to a lot of games and they are one of the best defensive teams in the country so it’s going to be a grind it out type of a game. And we’ll be ready.”
