Thomas leads UCLA to win over St. John’s
No. 19 UCLA 73, St. John’s 65: Iimar’i Thomas scored eight of her 19 points in the last six-plus minutes, Charisma Osborne added her seventh career doubledouble and the UCLA (4-2) broke away late to defeat St. John’s (3-4) on Sunday at the Gulf Coast Showcase in Estero, Fla.
The Bruins earned seventh place at the tournament and salvaged a win after back-to-back upset losses to Kent State and South Dakota State. All eight players scored for UCLA with four in double figures.
Osborne also scored 19 points – 12 in the first quarter – and added 11 rebounds and six assists. Natalie Chou and Dominique Onu each scored 10.
St. John’s Leilani Correa scored 17 points and Danielle Patterson scored 12 with 10 rebounds. The Red Storm have lost three at the tournament.
St. John’s trailed by as many as 12 with Osborne knocking down early 3pointers but St. John’s stormed back to tie twice in the third quarter and briefly take a 49-48 lead on a Patterson layup that capped a 7-0 surge.
St. John’s tied twice more as the fourth-quarter and trailed by no more than four until Thomas got hot in the final minutes, knocking down her last four shots.
No. 10 Louisville 71, Colorado State 56: Ahlana Smith and Kianna Smith led hot-shooting Louisville (5-1) with 11 points apiece as the Cardinals won their fifth straight by beating host Colorado State (5-1).
The Cardinals shot 52.8% from the floor in a contest they never trailed. Emily Engstler drained a 3-pointer 1:37 into the game and the Cardinals steadily pulled away, leading by as many as 21 points.
Engstler finished with 10 points and eight boards. The Cardinals out-rebounded the Rams by a 39-22 margin.
Colorado State was led by Sydney Mech and Karly Murphy with 12 points apiece. Cali Clark added 10 points as the Rams hosted a ranked nonconference team for the first time since No. 8 Connecticut visited Moby Arena in 2004.
Louisville shot 58.6% in the first half to take a comfortable lead into the locker room. But Colorado State made things interesting in the third quarter by cutting the deficit to 10 points on a layup from Mech. Cardinals coach Jeff Walz quickly sent five new players to the scorer’s table to check in and help settle things down.
The Cardinals improved to 2-2 against Colorado State. This was the first meeting between the two since Dec. 15, 2001, when the Rams beat the Cardinals 82-72 in the championship game of the Women’s Sports Foundation Tournament in Columbus, Ohio.