INDIANAPOLIS — Cori Close wanted her UCLA team to have a chance at conquering its previous adversary and, under the brightest lights of the season thus far, the squad delivered.
UCLA won its first Big Ten championship over rival USC, 72-67, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Sunday. It was the first season in the conference for both teams after joining from the Pac-12.
No. 1 seeded USC won both regular season meetings, including an 80-67 victory on UCLA’s home court eight days ago to win the Big Ten regular season title. Close said afterward, “Absolutely, I’d love another opportunity” at the Trojans and reiterated it on Saturday ahead of the matchup.
The Bruins climbed back from a 13-point second-half deficit, taking the lead off a turnover and hookshot by Janiah Barker minutes into the fourth quarter. It was their first lead since the game’s first few minutes. Kiki Rice, Gabriela Jaquez and Lauren Betts all scored to build a six-point lead that felt insurmountable for a struggling USC offense that ended the game shooting 34.3% mostly from a 55.6% mark in the first quarter.
Betts scored a team-high 17 points (all but four in the second half) on an efficient 7-of-10 day. She added five rebounds, four blocks and two assists to earn Big Ten Tournament MVP. Rice and Jones added 13 points each. The team was 53.3% overall and 8-of-5 from 3.
The Bruins put pressure on JuJu Watkins, who scored at least 30 in each of the first two meetings, and shut down the paint. No one else could score, either. USC didn’t put points up until 5:55 of the fourth quarter on two free throws by Kiki Iriafen. The Trojans’ first bucket came from Watkins at the 1:12 mark to draw the deficit to four, 64-60. Watkins scored a few late, but the damage was done. The Trojans were 4-of-19 (21.1%) in the final quarter.
“We came out with the right energy, I just don’t think our shots were falling,” said Watkins, who was named to the all-tournament team along with Iriafen. Iowa’s Lucy Olsen and Michigan’s Syla Swords filled out the group.
Offensively, it was a struggle for the national player of the year contender. She had 29 points, but went 9-for-28 and 2-for-8 from 3-point range. Iriafen only scored 10. No other player was in double digits.
Watkins was, once again, everywhere defensively despite shots not falling. In the first quarter, she chased down a loose ball in the backcourt, catching UCLA’s ballhandler off guard for two USC points. Coming in on help defense, she forced UCLA point guard Kiki Rice into a travel and minutes later a jump ball on the entry pass to Lauren Betts. At the end of the second, she bounced a pass between her legs to save the rebound, though her teammates mishandled it. And to start the second half, she recovered from turning the ball over on a UCLA trap by chasing down Rice in an attempt to alter the shot.
“How she has developed into the two-way player that she is is really remarkable,” USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said following USC’s quarterfinal win against Nebraska. “Think about what she handles on the offensive end. We get her the ball as much as we can. There’s multiple bodies draped on her. She takes a lot of contact. She’s a physical player. Then we say, oh, by the way, impact the game defensively, too. She takes no breaks.”
USC took its largest lead, 48-35, on a 3-pointer by Talia Von Oelhoffen that opened up the second half. The Trojans compensated for a choppy offense with more hustle, out-rebounding UCLA, 23-9, at the break. The Bruins climbed back by feeding Betts, whose nine points on a perfect 3-for-3 from both the floor and the free throw line were more than double her first-half total (4). They won the third, 17-9, to make it a 54-52 deficit heading into the fourth.
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