Bruins depending on Osborne's leadership

UCLA center Lauren Betts doesn’t typically go up against Charisma Osborne in practice — save for the occasional scrimmage — but she’s familiar with the 5-foot-9 guard’s play.

“She’s like a bug,” the 6-foot-7 Betts said. “She just won’t go away. On defense, she’s just a menace.”

Osborne has a high basketball IQ, anticipation and the physical abilities of power, strength and quickness, all of which make her an elite defender, according to UCLA coach Cori Close. But it’s the fifth-year Bruin’s emotional leadership that is digging No. 5 UCLA out of its loss to USC on Sunday and shifting its focus to today’s game against No. 3 Colorado in Boulder.

“She put the whole team on her back,” Close said of the USC game. “She got downhill in the second half. She willed us to come back in that game. Now you’re talking about special and the numbers are just an another indicator of the special.”

Osborne scored 25 points in the second half against USC to move to No. 4 all-time in career scoring at UCLA with 2,010 points. Her 256 3-pointers tie for the most in program history.

Her 2,000-point milestone was overshadowed by the 7365 loss to USC. The Bruins (14-1 overall, 3-1 in Pac-12) struggled all around in the first half and three players fouled out as USC’S Juju Watkins went on to score 32 points and pull down 10 rebounds. The loss,

which was 15 days after the Bruins won their first crosstown clash 71-64 at Pauley Pavilion, dropped UCLA three spots from No. 2 in the Associated Press poll and elevated the Trojans up three spots to No. 6.

“It hasn’t really hit me because it’s kind of bad timing,” Osborne said. “Anything individual is not really important at the moment. It’s just like, how can we collectively come together and bounce back?”

It’s not the first uncomfortable situation Osborne has faced in her five-year college career. She’s learned to find comfort in the uncomfortable and grow from it, even in the smallest of moments.

Osborne has the talent to play in the WNBA. Close is doing all she can to help her make it into a professional league that has few roster spots available. Some days, that means getting under Osborne’s skin a little bit.

Close will nit-pick even the most minute behaviors and parts of Osborne’s game that she doesn’t normally critique.

“And I’m just like, why? Why are you saying that? Like, you don’t usually say those things,” Osborne said. “Usually I get so annoyed or frustrated and understand that she’s not doing that to just make me mad or upset me, but just to make me a better player.”

Colorado (15-1, 5-0) enters today’s game on a nine-game win streak and is coming off a 71-59 win over No. 8 Stanford.