UCLA Women's Basketball Vs. Illinois Game Thread

We're trying a new thing here so that we can bring more focus to other sports at UCLA like the women's team.

Londynn Jones (Photo credit: Ross Turteltaub/uclabruins.com)

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A week ago people kept asking why we don’t have threads for other UCLA sports, especially the women’s basketball team, and it was a fair question to ask. Truth be told, it’s only myself and Joe here, and TMB is not our main job so we end up cutting things here and there because we hold ourselves to a pretty high standard regarding what we put out to you. But we’re going to try something for this game and see if people are OK with more of a low-effort style article for one of the non-revenue sports, and if that’s the case we might roll something out like this more often in the future.

I’m not going to break down UCLA’s season at this point (just like last year, I’ll probably do something substantial about the team at the end of the regular season) but suffice to say the Bruins are at an inflection point. With only one loss this season on the road to Southern Cal, the team is still sitting pretty, including getting named as the #1 overall season in the first Top 16 reveal for the NCAA Tournament. Still, that loss showcased some flaws in this UCLA squad that have been exacerbated since the loss of center Lauren Betts, who sat out Sunday’s victory over Michigan State and is said to be day-to-day with some sort of lower leg injury. Her status for this game remains unknown at this time.

Even if Betts plays in this game, you can assume she won’t be near 100%, and that may be a problem against a good Illinois squad. The Illini come into this game 21-5, and currently sit in 4th place in the conference. They don’t have a ton of depth, but everyone who sees the court is a threat to score. This is especially true of forward Kendall Bostic, who plays as a smaller big but has a lot of skill with the ball. She is only 6’2”, however, so UCLA’s size should be a factor here.

Given this is a home game, I would give the edge to the Bruins with or without Betts, but the game against Michigan State gave me pause. It was already apparent how critical Betts is to this team, as having a player of her size and skill is a cheat code at the collegiate level. But without Betts, UCLA reverted to being a good but not elite team. Much has been made of the depth of talent coach Cori Close has at her disposal, so this would be a good opportunity to prove it against a quality opponent.

This is your UCLA basketball vs Illinois game thread. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:30 PT on the Big Ten Network.

Go Bruins!