UCLA ends Southern’s dream season  

Los Angeles, Calif. (News4usOnline) – No. 1 UCLA started its NCAA playoff run with a16-5 lead in the first quarter against Southern University. The Bruins kept running to the tune of recording a 84-46 win at Pauley Pavilion in the first round of the NCAA Women’s Tournament. 

Despite what the final score looks like, UCLA head coach Cori Close knows her team had to work to beat the Jaguars. Southern forced UCLA into 17 turnovers and stayed within striking distance of the Bruins until their third quarter shooting woes finally did them in. 

“You know, man, does Southern play hard,” Close said after the game. “They are one of the top teams in the country at forcing turnovers for a reason, because they just play so hard. Their ability to sit in the stance and to sit down and guard for long periods of time is really admirable.”

Close added, “I just have a lot of respect for how hard they play. All the credit to them. I loved how we respond in the third quarter defensively. I think that’s really where we got to have urgency all the time.” 

The Bruins expanded their first quarter lead to 23-11 by the time the period came to a close, leaving the Jaguars in a quest for a comeback mode. That never materialized. That’s because UCLA dominated the paint with their physical presence. 

As a team, UCLA grabbed 13 rebounds alone in the first quarter. The Bruins finished the game with 44 rebounds. On the other side, Southern collected only 23 boards. 

“That’s when we’re at our best, you know. We talked about our team not being a team that plays not to lose but to go win and take possessions,” Close said. “I think when we are physical we’re anticipatory, when we are talking early, taking things away, that’s when we’re at our best.”

She continued, “What we needed to do is be able to use our depth and not get tired of doing it right. That the next woman up is going to execute the scouting report just like the person before them.The good news is we were able to play really reasonable minutes. I think physically we were able to respond and be able to be ready to play at a really high level on Sunday.”

Right from the start, the Bruins showed the upstart Jaguars that they are too big, too quick and too experienced  to play with. One Southern player thinking she was on her way to an easy layup got met in mid-air and saw her shot attempt blocked. 

In a way, that play set the tone of how the rest of the game would be played from the Bruins’ view. That would be physical. UCLA collected 13 rebounds and had three blocked shots in the first quarter. 

That physicality seemed to have an immediate effect on the Jaguars as they wound up missing 13 of their first 18 shots from the field. It didn’t help the team’s shooting percentage any when Southern players simply misfired on a good number of point-blank field goal attempts. 

The Bruins took advantage of the miscues by the Jaguars to open up their lead. After looking like they were going to run away from the Jaguars midway in the second quarter, the Bruins got stagnant and allowed the visitors from Louisiana to crawl their way back into the ballgame. 

Even though UCLA led at half by a dozen points, the Bruins started to lose their fire they had coming out of the locker room in the first period and led 38-26. 

Southern played a lot better in the second quarter to get back into the game, converting 7 of 15 field goal attempts, which was a lot better than the 27 percent the Jaguars made in the first quarter. 

Basically, Southern played UCLA to a draw in the second quarter with both teams scoring 15 points apiece. The Bruins then blew the lid off the game at the beginning of the third quarter. 

With Southern drawing a blank on their first seven shots from the field, which included five missed 3-pointers and having two layups blocked, the Bruins moved out to a 21-point lead (47-26) with a little more than six minutes remaining in the period. That was the beginning of the end for Southern’s dream season.

“Well, I knew it was going to be a heavyweight battle,” Southern head coach Carlos Funchess said. “Their size was a major factor tonight. They did a great job rebounding the basketball. And they shot it exceptionally well, especially from three.”