First half stutter turns into second half stomping in No. 1 UCLA’s win over No. 16 Cal Baptist

LOS ANGELES – UCLA may not have many issues at a team, but starting slow stands out as the most apparent example. 

It’s shown up before in tight games against teams like Ohio State, Michigan and Washington. Even with all those games ending in a UCLA victory, there were still interesting moments early on where that result was in question. 

No. 1 UCLA’s matchup against No. 16 Cal Baptist in the first round of the NCAA Tournament was no different. The Lancers went into the game as the obvious underdogs, and with something to prove.

“My mindset was trying to show everyone we were better than No. 16," Cal Baptist junior guard Filipa Barros said. “We had nothing to lose. So, just trying to come with everything and prove to everyone they were wrong."

Scrappy vs. Strong 

The Lancers came into Pauley Pavilion scrappy and ready to shoot. Head coach Jarrod Olson said that the team prided themselves on their pace of play and their talent from three and both were on display. 

Their pace rushed UCLA and shut down the Bruins’ scoring while the Lancers’ performance from three, especially early on in the game, allowed them to keep up with one of the best teams in the nation before heading into halftime trailing by just 10, 44-34. 

UCLA’s players were already quick to take accountability for their shortcomings before head coach Cori Close arrived, but that didn’t stop the UCLA skipper from having a hard conversation of her own with them.

A second half resurgence 

“It was spirited," Close said of her talk with the team. “It was unacceptable. It’s not the fact that we missed shots. Those aren’t the things that get me really fired up. It’s when we don’t execute the scouting report. When we are lackadaisical. When we don’t communicate… Those are the controllable things that we made a commitment to each other that we would deliver on."

Whatever exactly that “spirited" conversation entailed, it certainly did the trick.

The Bruins outscored the Lancers 52-9 and finished the game on a 21-2 run to take over the game 96-43. By the end, three Bruins, graduate forward Angela Dugalic, senior center Lauren Betts and freshman forward Sienna Betts, all finished the game with double-doubles. 

While the end result was typically dominant, how it started reveals a point that the Bruins do need to address as they move forward in the tournament. Giving up points due to a lack of commitment to controllable factors, as Close described it, will be less and less survivable as the talent in the competition becomes more equivalent. 

“We’ve had a few instances of that throughout the year… We’re not trying to stay in the past, but we need to learn from our mistakes," Dugalic said. “That is something that we need to over-emphasize and over-exaggerate. Those warmups, that first start of the game, even going into the second half as well."

For now, it’s UCLA advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, where they’ll face Oklahoma State. 

For Cal Baptist, even though their season has come to a close, they can head home with the satisfaction that at least for a moment, they made the Bruins sweat.

“In my opinion, that’s the best team in the country and we gave them all they could handle for about 20 minutes," Olson said. “Unfortunately, whatever Cori [Close] said to them at halftime really got them going… but I was just really proud of the way we played and how we went for it."