Women’s basketball takes down Pacific after close first half
Junior forward Michaela Onyenwere put up 19 points in No. 10 UCLA women’s basketball’s win over Pacific on Sunday. The game was the first in the Bruins’ last five games in which Onyenwere scored fewer than 20 points.(Ariana Saigh/Daily Bruin)
Women's Basketball
| Pacific | 57 |
| No. 10 UCLA | 68 |
By Jon Christon
Dec. 16, 2019 1:06 p.m.
The Bruins’ winning streak chugs on.
Despite missing three players to injury, No. 10 UCLA women’s basketball (9-0) defeated Pacific (6-3) 68-57 on Sunday afternoon, extending its season-opening winning streak to nine games.
While they ended up winning by double-digits, the Bruins had just a two-point lead over the Tigers going into halftime. The 31 points UCLA scored in the first half were its second-lowest first-half total of the season.
Redshirt senior guard Japreece Dean said the key to a better second half was the Bruins’ defense.
“It starts with our defense – putting pressure on the ball and then playing team defense,” Dean said. “We had very good possessions where we were helping each other – being in help side and helping in the post – so it definitely started with our defense.”
With the game tied 20 seconds into the second half, junior forward Michaela Onyenwere scored five straight points to give UCLA a 36-31 lead. She finished the game with 19 points – including 13 in the second half – which ended her four-game streak of scoring 20-plus.
Onyenwere’s second-half run started a Bruin scoring streak that led to a double-digit lead early in the fourth quarter.
“I don’t think we started off the way we knew we could,” Onyenwere said. “We ended up eventually responding in the second half, and that kind of shows glimpses of what we can be as a team and how good we can be if we lock in and focus.”
Pacific’s 57 points tied its lowest mark of the season. After hitting five of their 10 3-point attempts in the first half, the Tigers missed all nine of their long-range attempts in the second half.
UCLA also held Pacific’s leading scorer forward Brooklyn McDavid to only seven points on 3-of-10 shooting, down from her scoring average of 19.6 points per game prior to Sunday.
Coach Cori Close said she credited junior forward Lauryn Miller with shutting down McDavid.
“I really want to credit (Miller) – I think that was some of the best post defense she has ever played for us,” Close said. “I also think our perimeter defense made it hard for them to find (McDavid) – our length on the perimeter, our length on the ball.
Miller finished the game with five rebounds, three steals and one block.
The Bruins were without redshirt sophomore guard Lindsey Corsaro, junior guard Chantel Horvat and sophomore guard Kiara Jefferson on Sunday because of injuries. The trio’s averages added together results in 60 minutes a game for the Bruins.
Starters Onyenwere and redshirt junior guard Natalie Chou were in foul trouble as well, each picking up their third fouls early in the second half. Both played fewer minutes than their respective season averages coming into the day.
Close said that UCLA replaced this production with different players than usual.
“We had a really good preparation,” Close said. “We had some really good people step up from the bench, especially (freshman guard) Camryn Brown.”
Brown – who had only appeared in four games as a Bruin prior to Sunday – played a career-high 27 minutes in Sunday’s victory, scoring five points and grabbing four rebounds.
Freshman guard Charisma Osborne also had a career-high in minutes with 35. She finished with 17 points and seven rebounds, both career highs.
The Bruins will travel to Georgia and take on the Bulldogs on Thursday in their second-to-last nonconference game of the regular season.
