SPOKANE, Wash. — If there’s one factor UCLA’s Elite Eight victory confirmed, it is that the Bruins are about extra than simply Lauren Betts.
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The 6-foot-7 All America heart is the centerpiece of UCLA’s offense and a menace for his or her opponents. However she’s not the one asset for the general top-seeded Bruins, who will face UConn and Paige Bueckers on Friday as the ladies’s NCAA Match heads to Tampa, Florida, for the Last 4.
Towards LSU within the regional remaining, Betts picked up two early fouls. She went to the bench with lower than a minute left within the opening quarter, then sat all the second quarter. She did not return till after halftime.
The Bruins leaned on Timea Gardiner, whereas guards Kiki Rice and Gabriela Jaquez saved their teammates centered. UCLA wound up outscoring the Tigers 22-12 within the quarter as Betts regarded on.
“I don’t have to be in the game at all times. I have a team full of players who are just amazing and talented in their own right, and they put in the work,” Betts stated. “So I knew that as I was sitting there, I’m going to be the best teammate that I can and cheer them on, but they have my back at the end of the day.”
Even when Betts was within the sport, she was usually derailed by the Tigers’ protection, which double-teamed her at occasions. She nonetheless completed with 17 factors, seven rebounds and 6 blocks in three quarters of play. Betts averages 20 factors and 9.6 rebounds for the Bruins.
“I think that we just did what we usually do. One person goes down, another person steps up,” stated Gardiner, who completed with 15 factors — all on 3-pointers. “As Lauren said, we have a deep team and everyone is ready when their number’s called, and so we truly did that and we found each other, too, and we just played off each other and we just had fun.”
The Bruins have misplaced simply twice this season — each occasions to nemesis Southern California — earlier than profitable the Large Ten title after which sweeping by means of the opening two rounds of the event.
They pulled away within the second half of a 76-62 victory over Mississippi within the Candy 16, Betts main the best way with an environment friendly 31 factors on 15-of-16 capturing to associate with 10 rebounds.
That arrange the victory over LSU, which despatched the Bruins to the NCAA Last 4 for the primary time, though UCLA received a nationwide title in 1978 within the pre-NCAA period of girls’s basketball.
Jaquez had 18 factors and eight rebounds towards the Tigers and Gardiner completed with 15 factors.
Gardiner, a switch from Oregon State, has averaged 7.7 factors and three.5 assists, whereas Jaquez has averaged 9.9 factors and 5.2 rebounds. Rice is second on the staff to Betts with a median of 12.9 factors.
UConn, the Bruins’ opponent on Friday, acquired 31 factors from Bueckers in a 78-64 Elite Eight victory on Monday evening over USC, for the Huskies’ file twenty fourth journey — a file amongst each males’s and ladies’s groups — to the nationwide semifinals. Sarah Sturdy added 22 factors and 17 rebounds.
UCLA coach Cori Shut stated Betts’ absence for a whole quarter was good for the remainder of the staff’s confidence that they will play successfully with out their star heart, and it additionally might have solved one other puzzle, too.
“The other part of that equation, not only did Lauren go out, but we have been really struggling in second quarters,” Shut stated. “So we’ve been having great first quarters and great third quarters, and we were talking to our team and at the quarter break, we said, `OK, here we go right here. What are we going to do different to come out and execute? We have more than enough and what does it look like to really execute right now?’ And it wasn’t even just about without Lauren. It was like, we want to play better all the way through this stretch.”
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