The Riverside Press-Enterprise
UCLA women go small, come up big
With their 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts having an off-night, the No. 8-ranked UCLA women’s basketball team turned to a couple of smaller dynamos.
Kiki Rice had 20 points and nine rebounds and Charisma Osborne added 14 in a 53-45 win over 13thranked Colorado 53-45 late on Monday night that moved the Bruins into a three-way tie for second in the Pac-12.
UCLA notched its nationbest seventh win over a Top 25 team this season.
“That’s what I believe we’re capable of,” coach Cori Close said. “I’m really proud of how we’re finding different ways to win.”
Newly returned to the top 10 in the AP rankings, the Bruins (22-5, 11-5) blew a 12-point, first-half lead before recovering in the third behind their two guards.
“It gives us a lot of confidence going into this final week of Pac-12,” Osborne said. “It’s the first time we’ve won three in a row in a long time.”
Scoreless in the first half, Quay Miller ignited a 13-2 run for the Buffaloes to open the third, capped by Tameiya Sadler’s steal and basket for a 32-31 lead, their first of the game. The Bruins committed seven turnovers in seven minutes.
Londynn Jones came in and scored five in a row for UCLA, Rice made two free throws, and Osborne scored to send the Bruins into the fourth leading 40-35.
“Tough games, especially tight ones down the stretch, you start to realize every possession matters,” Rice said.
Betts, whose field-goal percentage leads Division I, was scoreless until the fourth, when her basket extended UCLA’S lead to 44-35. Her two points tied a season low, well off her team-leading 15.5 average, but she came up with a big steal with 30 seconds to go.
“You have to be able to make other kinds of winning plays,” Close said.
The Buffs closed to 4643 on five straight points by Aaronette Vonleh.
Both teams then went cold, combining to go 0 for 20 during a nearly 10-minute stretch that finally ended with Osborne’s 3-pointer, keeping UCLA ahead 49-43.
Rice stole the ball and scored with 17 seconds remaining to seal the win despite 24 turnovers by the Bruins.
“It was terrible,” Close said. “Bottom line is we’ve got to reverse those numbers.”
Jaylyn Sherrod had 10 points and seven rebounds before fouling out in the closing seconds for the Buffs (20-7, 10-6)
Two weeks ago, Colorado was projected as one of four top seeds in the NCAA Tournament by the selection committee. Now, the Buffs have dropped four in a row and fallen into a two-way tie for third in the league.
UCLA, which next plays at Arizona State on Thursday,
is expected to host early round games in the NCAA Tournament, so their six seniors will be back at Pauley Pavilion before season’s end.
Around the nation
• Dawn Staley has South Carolina in a familiar place with a week left in the regular season.
For the second straight year the No. 1 Gamecocks haven’t lost a game heading into March — a feat they hadn’t accomplished before last season. Even with all five starters from last year’s Final Four run gone, the Gamecocks sit at 27-0 with two games left.
They visit Arkansas on Thursday before hosting Tennessee on Sunday. The Gamecocks clinched their third consecutive outright SEC regular-season championship and eighth in 11 years after Sunday’s win over Kentucky.
“We haven’t lost a game and our players are thinking this is the way it is. The competition gets better and better as we approach the postseason,” Staley said after beating Kentucky on Sunday. “We want to give our players their flowers but want them to know there’s work to do.”
• Sunday’s matchup against No. 2 Ohio State could be sixth-ranked Iowa star Caitlin Clark’s final regular season game at home. The NCAA’S alltime scoring leader has a fifth year of eligibility left if she wants it. She hasn’t announced whether she’ll come back for a fifth-year or not or enter the WNBA draft where she is the presumed No. 1 pick.
Clark will have potentially two more games at home in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament as the top 16 teams host those games.
Men's highlights NO. 9 NORTH CAROLINA 75,
MIAMI 71 >> RJ Davis poured in four straight 3-pointers during a riveting secondhalf stretch on his way to a career-high 42 points late on Monday night, as the Tar Heels handed the Hurricanes their seventh loss in a row. Davis, a senior guard, set a Smith Center scoring record for North Carolina (22-6, 14-3 ACC).
NO. 15 BAYLOR 62, TCU 54 >> Ja’kobe Walter scored 13 of his 16 points after halftime, and the standout freshman started and capped a gameturning spurt by Baylor in a win over TCU. Yves Missi, a 7-foot freshman, also finished with 16 points and Jalen Bridges scored 15 for Baylor (20-8, 9-6 Big 12).