UCLA Basketball Roundup: Bruins Ready to Begin Play in Women's Tourney
Plus, a postgame update on Tyler Bilodeau from Mick Cronin.
Before I discuss tonight’s women’s basketball game against the CBU Lancers, let me give you a quick update on the status on Tyler Bilodeau.
After last night’s game against UCF, men’s head coach Mick Cronin addressed the reason why Bilodeau did not play last night:
“[A] lot of guys stepped up, obviously, with Tyler not being able to go tonight. Before you guys ask, he had a good practice yesterday, woke up stiff today. I didn’t like the way he was moving in shoot around this morning. He wanted to play and I said no.”
“If you want to know why I said no, then you should probably never coach. You’ve got to be responsible for the people underneath you and try to do the right thing. You might see me being hard on guys, but when the rubber meets the road and they need somebody, I’m the guy. So, they can take it to the bank. I’m not going to put that guy in harm’s way. Hopefully, he has a good day tomorrow. Before you ask, we’ll see how he is on Sunday. All right, guys.”
So, it looks like he will be a game time decision tomorrow.
OK, with that said, let’s now deal with the task at hand. Tonight, the UCLA women’s basketball team starts their journey towards a possible second consecutive Final Four when the Bruins face the CBU Lancers.
Yesterday, Kiki Rice, Charlisse Leger-Walker, Lauren Betts, and Cori Close all met wit the media at Pauley. The players were up first.
Rather unsurprisingly, the first question went to Lauren and it was about the article she wrote for The Players Tribune which was published a few days ago and why she wrote it. She explained:
“I think it was a good opportunity for me to show the growth that I’ve had in the past few years. I think the last one that came out was during my junior year when I was kind of in my transition and I think the point where I’m at now, I’ve healed so much since my sophomore year and I think to where you it from my perspective was really special for me and I think just to here all the amazing things that I’ve learned throughout these three years.
“So, I don’t know, I think it was just an amazing opportunity for me to continue to speak on what I stand for and why I play basketball and why I think for me this is so much bigger than myself. I think the people I have been able to impact really means a lot to me and that’s why I wanted to do it.”
Both Lauren and Kiki spoke about what means to be playing the final games at Pauley over the next few days. Lauren almost didn’t want to think about it.
“Honestly we try not to talk about that that much because it’s very emotional. I will always say I’m so grateful for UCLA and everything that they’ve done for me,” she said. “Ever since I came on campus, they’ve been so amazing to me and my process and my journey and, yeah. I don’t know, it’s going to be really special I think to have these last two games with all the fans here and my mom’s flying out to watch.” She concluded, “So, that’s really amazing to me. But, yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s really crazy. I really can’t even, like, process all of it right now. I’m just trying to focus on practice today and that’s it.”
Meanwhile, Kiki expressed similar sentiments. “I can’t believe these will be my last games here my four-year career, but just really excited about the opportunity to play here,” she said. “You’re not guaranteed two games at your home at the end of your season. “So, it’s great that we have been able to earn that but the fact that these will be the last games, it’s crazy but grateful for all the times, memories that I have been able to make in Pauley and hope to finish it out on a great note with this team.”
Of course, UCLA has been in the midst of finals, and I asked the players how that’s been for them. “I just finished my finals... what day is it today? Friday?” Lauren asked. “I finished them on Wednesday. Wednesday was my last official school day at UCLA. Very happy to be done with classes. But, yeah, I’m just grateful to be done with classes so I can focus on this tournament. Guys, being a student-athlete is very hard, so I’m very grateful to be done.”
Kiki seemed happy to have been done last week. She commented, “Yeah, I finished last week so I was pretty fortunate. I think last Thursday was my last day of class. But, yeah, it is pretty crazy.” It didn’t sound like she plans to go to grad school anytime soon either. “I don’t have to go to school anymore. I never want to. That’s exciting. But, yeah, it’s really cool to have finished up. Definitely frees up some more time,” she added.
On the other hand, Charlisse Leger-Walker has been pursuing a graduate degree. Apparently, her courseload was the lightest of the three of them. “I think for me, I have done school the longest so it’s nice to finally be done and I think as a grad student I probably had a lighter load than these guys so I’ve sort of not been in class, in-person classes for a while,” Leger-Walker said. “It’s been noise for me. I’ve just been enjoying the basketball.” So have we all!
When Coach Close came to the microphone, the conversation turned to the difference between a neutral site like the team had in the Big Ten Tournament versus playing games this weekend.
First she discussed playing at home. Close said, “There are going to be incredible moments being at home and I’m pretty confident we’re going to have 10,000 people and it’s going to be a great atmosphere. And these players deserve that. They really do. I think that we just want to fuel every experience.”
Did you hear that, Bruin fans? She wants Pauley packed tonight! You can still get tickets if you want to come out and watch this incredible, unselfish team play again!
Close continued, “I love energy. I don’t actually care. When we were empty championship in the Big Ten Tournament, it was 90% Iowa fans and those people, they travel. They are passionate. They’re amazing. I just think, though, it’s all energy. I just think our ability to take the energy of what we’re getting to experience and channeling it into being present, focused, and trying to be the best version of ourselves is what we’re going to plan to do.”
Close also spoke about her reaction to Betts’ article.
“You know, I just love Lauren Betts. I could not imagine when I was that age have that kind of courage and having experienced some of those things alongside her and with her, to see even just being over there and watching her answer the question about why she did that I think spoke to her growth,” she said.
Then, she got into the actual reaction, saying:
“For her to -- we always say you never outperform your self-image, but in this case, to your question, it’s incredible to watch how she’s grown and healed in miraculous ways. I couldn’t be any prouder.”
“I didn’t see it and I walked into Pam Walker, our director of basketball operations, her office and she just had these big tears and I said, what’s wrong? She goes have you head the article? She goes, I am just so proud of Lauren. And I text her and just said I could not be more impressed and inspired by your courageous vulnerability.”
Of course, Coach Close was, well, close with Coach Wooden. So, I asked her what Wooden Wisdom she was focusing on now.
“Make each day your masterpiece, right? If you focus on things out of your control, it will adversely affect the things under your control. Our whole thing about being present, focused, all I can do today is try to be the best leader for our team today, to be a great teacher today, to try to get better today.”
“I think the more consistent, it actually goes to your question. The more consistent we can be to how we’ve been all year, I think the more we handle the emotions, the distractions, the other things really, really well. I think Coach Wooden really didn’t -- he really saw the games as the byproducts of being a great teacher in practice and that it really wasn’t any more important to him. In fact, it was probably less important to him because it was a byproduct of the more important thing of teaching and mentoring and equipping the young men he had the opportunity to serve.”
“So I just want to do that. If I can be a tenth, a hundredth of the teacher he was -- and I think also the thing I take so much is that it was about him and the purity of truly wanting to invest in the young men he had contact with and had investment in, this is not about me. This is humbly hoping that they have this incredible uncommon transformational experience that they’re proud of 40 years from now just like they are right now.”
Considering how much talk there’s been through the years about UCLA’s men’s basketball coaches having to thrive in Coach Wooden’s program, and so many of them failing to live up to even modest expectations. It’s pretty amazing that it seems like the coach who seems to have learned the most from him coaches UCLA’s women’s team instead.
Here’s the complete video of yesterday’s press conference, courtesy of UCLA Athletics on YouTube.
Go Bruins!!!
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Already nervous! Praying for a huge crowd of Bruins this eve...
This Lady Bruins team is a once in a lifetime team in so many ways. I will miss them so much... so I am treasuring every moment of this Dance, like none before!!!
Go Bruins!!! 💙💛💙💛