UCLA women’s basketball earns 20-win season for first time in four years
Sophomore forward Jasmine Dixon led the Bruins on Saturday against
Oregon with 31 points and 20 rebounds.
By Brantley Watson
Feb. 28, 2010 11:32 p.m.
Last year, the UCLA women’s basketball team finished the season with 19 wins and came up just short of making the NCAA Tournament.
If the Bruins do not make the tournament this year, it won’t be because they failed to reach the 20-win mark, as the Bruins defeated the Oregon Ducks on Saturday afternoon, 91-75, to capture their 20th win of the season.
Saturday’s victory gave the Bruins their first 20-win season since the 2005-2006 season, which is also the last time UCLA made the NCAA Tournament.
“I think it helps,” UCLA coach Nikki Caldwell said of her team reaching the 20-win plateau. “They really look at the last 10 games. But we’ve got two more games that can put us at 22 wins, which would put us in great position for the NCAA Tournament. But we’re taking it one game at a time and one opponent at a time.”
However, by no means was the Bruins’ 20th victory an easy one. The first half was a back-and-forth tussle. On Saturday, the Ducks, one of the highest scoring teams in the nation, lived up to that billing, knocking down eight shots from long distance to go into halftime with a 50-46 lead.
“We missed a lot of defensive assignments,” Caldwell said. “We allowed their transition game to get going, and we weren’t able to set up defensively. Playing a team like that at home, you’ve got to expect shots to go in. But in the second half, our defensive intensity got a lot better.”
Players agreed, realizing that in the first half they didn’t perform up to their usual defensive standards.
“We gave them too many open threes,” sophomore forward Jasmine Dixon said. “They hit eight in the first half, and that really killed us. So it wasn’t their fast-paced offense, it was just a lack of defense.”
But in the end, it was Dixon who succeeded against the Ducks.
The Long Beach native had career highs in both points and rebounds, netting 31 points and snatching 20 rebounds to spearhead a 23-2 run for the Bruins in the second half. She helped secure a comeback victory for UCLA, which trailed 66-50 with 14 minutes left in the second half.
And according to Dixon, her success on the offensive end resulted from her unsuccessful efforts on defense.
“I had to pick it up because I was lacking on defense a lot in the first half,” Dixon said. “So I definitely had to pick it up on the offensive end, and in the second half, my defense kicked in.”
Dixon, who leads the Bruins in scoring and rebounding, scored 15 points in the first half and pulled down nine rebounds as well. But in the second half, it seemed like there was not a rebound that Dixon did not get her hand on, as she grabbed 11 in the final 20 minutes. More impressively, Dixon finished the game with 12 offensive boards as opposed to only eight defensive.
“She did what she needed to do offensively,” Caldwell said. “I thought she just got us easy baskets and the team got her ball. I thought she also dominated the boards for us. All in all, she did what we needed to win. She has consistently established herself as a go-to player and one of the best players, if not the best, in the Pac-10 and soon to be in the country.”
Junior guard Doreena Campbell and senior guard Erica Tukiainen also did their part on the offensive end, chipping in 21 and 13 points, respectively.
