Women’s basketball advances to second round of NCAA Tournament after defeating North Carolina State
By Brantley Watson
March 21, 2010 6:55 p.m.
Minneapolis, MN — After a first half filled with turnovers, in and out jump shots, missed layups, and the occasional clean offensive set, the UCLA women’s basketball team turned things around in the second half of its NCAA Tournament first-round game against North Carolina State, defeating the Wolfpack 74-54 and advancing to the second round to take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers, the No. 1 seed in the Kansas City region.
The eighth-seeded Bruins came out slow to say the least, committing several costly turnovers that led to easy buckets for the ninth-seeded Wolfpack, and UCLA trailed 25-16 with a little more than three minutes to go in the first half.
“Yeah, in the beginning they got off to a lead, but we didn’t panic,” UCLA sophomore forward Jasmine Dixon said. “We just had to play our game, and it came to us after awhile.”
And it was not just the underclassmen who felt the pregame jitters.
“I definitely had butterflies in my stomach,” UCLA senior guard Erica Tukiainen said, who was participating in her first ever NCAA Tournament game.
But once the Bruins settled down, UCLA closed out the half with a crucial 10-0 run that shifted the momentum of the game for good. The Bruins led 26-25 going into the locker room and never trailed again.
“Our pressure defense began to kick in,” Dixon said. “Our traps began to work “¦ and the momentum was on our side. And in the second half we came out with the same momentum.”
“I thought we made some very critical defensive mistakes at the end of the first half and some turnovers,” North Carolina State coach Kellie Harper said. “I thought it did give them some momentum going into the second half.”
The second half proved to be a different story for both teams.
The Bruins played the role of aggressor from the start of the second half until the game’s conclusion, while North Carolina State, which controlled the tempo of the game for a majority of the first half, looked sloppy and flustered by UCLA’s defense.
Dixon finished the game with a team high 17 points and 11 rebounds, but it was the play of freshman forward Markel Walker that led the Bruins to the blowout victory. Walker finished with eight points, eight rebounds and seven assists, and her aggressiveness on the offensive end ignited the Bruins’ late rally in the first half and throughout the second half.
“Markel is very special because she can play one through five,” UCLA coach Nikki Caldwell said. “She makes our break a lot faster because she can play every position. To me, we want to run every opportunity we get. When we’re able to push tempo like that, we’re at our best.”
Sophomore guard Rebekah Gardner scored all of her 13 points in the second half, and Tukiainen dropped in 12 points. Junior point guard Doreena Campbell scored 11 for the Bruins.
“Nikki’s done a great job, and they’ve had a really nice year,” Harper said in her postgame press conference. “They really know their strengths, and they play to their strengths. She’s just competitive, and she knows how to win.”
UCLA’s second-round game against Nebraska will take place Tuesday in Minneapolis with a trip to the Sweet Sixteen on the line.
