UCLA Women's Basketball Crushed by UConn, 85-51
The Bruins fell behind very early and were unable to catch up.
Wow. Just wow. What a terrible way to end an otherwise amazing season.
Tonight, the UCLA Bruins, the #1 overall seed in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, was steamrolled by Sarah Strong, Paige Bueckers and the UConn Huskies, 85-51.
The 34-point margin was the largest in a semifinal in tournament history.
UCLA never led in the game and, after the game was tied 4-4, they weren’t able to ever tie it back up again either. By all accounts, it was a dominating win by the Huskies.
Unfortunately for the Bruins, they simply did not play their best when their best was needed. All the things that made this team shine until this point seemed to disappear over the course of 40 minutes.
UCLA turned the ball over 14 times in the first half alone and 19 times total. They shot just 4 for 16 from three-point range. They shot just 38.5% from the field and they grabbed just eight offensive rebounds. The team blocked just two shots all night, one was by Lauren Betts and the other was by Angela Dugalić.
Frankly, it was painful to watch a team, which was without a key player for most of the first half yet managed to keep it together in the Regional Final against LSU on Sunday, completely fall apart the way UCLA did tonight.
There is absolutely no doubt that UConn was the better team on the court tonight. In his postgame press conference, UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said, “I don't think we made a mistake the entire evening, especially on the defensive end.”
It’s hard to disagree with that statement.
UCLA head coach Cori Close echoed similar sentiments in her opening statement to the media. She said:
“They were the aggressors. They played more purposefully. They played more connected. They were tougher than us tonight. And they handed it to us.
That being said, we've got to learn from this. We've obviously gone to new heights this year. But we've got to let the pain of this, hopefully, teach us to go to new heights next year and learn from this and be better the next time.”
Going to the stats for a moment, Lauren Betts led all scorers with 26 points. No other Bruin finished in double figures. Sarah Strong led the Huskies with 22 while Azzi Fudd put up 19. Paige Bueckers ended her string of 30-point games by scoring only 16.
Gabriela Jaquez, Strong, and Jana El Alfy all had eight rebounds each.
Here’s the both of the postgame press conferences in one video, courtesy of the NCAA/March Madness on YouTube.
I’ve cued the YouTube video to the point where the UCLA postgame press conference starts since that’s what most of our readers are likely to want to see. UConn’s postgame press conference was first. If you would like to watch the UConn press conference, please rewind the video to the 16:23 mark to see the start of the Huskies’ portion, or you can simply click this link to get to that point.
Despite the loss, there’s a lot for Bruin fans to be proud of. This year’s team has been one of the greatest UCLA women’s basketball teams of all time—not the greatest, mind you, because you can’t be in that conversation without winning a national championship, but almost certainly in the top three.
The top UCLA women’s team of all time would still be the 1977-78 team which won the AIAW national championship. The 1978-79 team finished fourth overall at a time when the losers from the semifinal games played for third place.
Regardless, this year’s team climbed the mountain and almost made it to the very top.
The good news is that the team has no seniors and should come back intact, depending on the transfer portal, while they will be adding Sienna Betts.
So, while they may have fallen short of the ultimate goal, I expect that they will learn from this experience and come back even stronger next year.
As Coach Wooden said, “Failure is never fatal, but the failure to change might be.” This team will learn from tonight’s experience and make sure that, the next time they have an opportunity like this, they will be at their best when their best is needed.
Thank you, ladies, for bringing a lot of joy to Bruin fans for the past month and all season long. We can’t wait to see what you do for an encore.
Go Bruins.
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The worst part about this loss is not the losing, but the feeling that you didn’t bring your best to compete. The Bruins are so much of a better team than what we saw last night. I don’t know if it was nerves, cross country travel, or what, but everything seemed off. Sloppy passes, air balls followed by bricks, not protecting the ball, poor rebounding… Huskies brought their game, and we left ours in Westwood.
Even though things didn’t end the way we hoped, there’s still a lot to be proud of this season and a lot to build upon for next.
Go Bruins!
Before this game, I thought whoever wins it would eventually go on to win the championship game, but I didn't expect the Lady Bruins to do a complete faceplant--U$C minus JuJu didn't get blown out THIS badly. It's disappointing that everyone not named Betts probably played one of their worst games of the season. Credit goes to UConn with their elite coach and championship-level experience in making this tournament's overall top seed look and perform like a 16-seed. Overall, it was a very entertaining Final Four season for the Lady Bruins, so hope they can address their one-dimensional scoring limitations and excessive turnovers and go further next year.