Mistakes on defense and turnovers prove costly for UCLA in first loss
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Londynn Jones escaped with the ball on a fast break. Down eight points in the first quarter, all the shifty UCLA guard had to do was make a layup to keep USC within reach amid a JuJu Watkins scoring run. Barreling her way into the paint with too much force, Jones tumbled to the floor and was called for charging.
The play was representative of UCLA’s frustrating start to Thursday’s rivalry game. The Bruins gave up 24 points in the first, tying their season high for a quarter. It was beginning to look like a disaster for coach Cori Close and the top-ranked Bruins in front of a sold-out crowd of 10,528 at Galen Center. UCLA’s best-in-the-Big Ten perimeter defense struggled as Watkins scorched the Bruins’ guards for six first-half three-pointers.
But the Bruins went on a 14-1 run and trailed only by three points at halftime. The UCLA surge continued in the third, with Lauren Betts scoring nine of her 18 points in the quarter as the Bruins capitalized on a 34-13 run spanning the halves to take a seven-point lead.
JuJu Watkins finished with 38 points, 11 rebounds and eight blocks as USC overcame a second-half deficit to send rival UCLA to its first loss of the season.
“I really loved our response in the first half,” Close said, “to come back and then to really take control of the game in the third.”
Close needed more of that Bruins magic — the same that helped them start the season undefeated and earn their ranking — to close out the sixth-ranked Trojans. Instead, she watched as late lapses doomed UCLA to a 71-60 loss.
Like it did in the first quarter, UCLA gave up 24 points in the fourth quarter and scored just eight. The Bruins made just two of their final 19 shots.
“I got to take responsibility,” Close said. “I got to get us ready for that, and that would be my job to get us extremely fatigued in practice.”
UCLA’s leading scorer struggled in crunch time: Betts missed all three of her fourth-quarter shots — two of which Watkins swatted away on her way to a career-high eight blocks.
“I gotta be better, period,” said Betts, who finished five for 13 from the field, grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds and played a team-high 37 minutes.
USC’s game plan worked on Betts. The Trojans (22-2, 12-1) locked up the 6-foot-7, Naismith College Player of the Year candidate in the interior and mixed and matched bigs — Clarice Akunwafo, Rayah Marshall and Kiki Iriafen — on defense to muck up Betts’ rhythm in the paint. It worked in the first half. Betts had just nine points at the break, with five coming from the charity stripe.
And it worked again in the fourth quarter, leaving UCLA hapless as it tried to get the ball inside to Betts and Janiah Barker before Barker fouled out with 2:07 remaining.
“It’s just a clinic in post defense,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said, emphasizing Akunwafo’s contributions. “We talked about not letting Betts get to her spots.”
UCLA (23-1, 11-1 Big Ten) also struggled with turnovers. The Trojans scored 21 points off 20 Bruins turnovers.
A major turning point came with less than four minutes left when USC freshman guard Kennedy Smith clapped in Kiki Rice’s face as the UCLA point guard crossed half court, raising the crowd noise exponentially. Moments later, Akunwafo’s strip-steal led to an Iriafen layup, helping push the Trojans’ lead to five.
“We didn’t take care of the ball,” said Rice, who finished with 15 points. “They scored a lot off of our turnovers, which we need to clean up. I think the biggest thing is the fourth quarter and how we let them dominate us.”
Close took pleasure in noting that the schedule doesn’t get easier for the Bruins. UCLA faces No. 22 Michigan State at Pauley Pavilion on Sunday and Illinois on Thursday before heading off for a two-game Big Ten trip.
“What these losses painfully teach us is where we have laxed and where we got our butts beat,” Close said. “There’s no time to be in the pity pond.”
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