Tough tournament is the pits for UCLA

  NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Freshman Tony
Lawson dribbles past Stanford’s Roger Levesque in No. 17
UCLA’s 1-0 overtime win over the top-ranked Cardinal. Duke
80 UCLA 52 New Mexico 75 UCLA 54

By Mayar Zokaei
Daily Bruin Contributor

It seemed fitting that the UCLA women’s basketball team
was playing its first two games of the season at the University of
New Mexico’s Bob King Court, referred to as “the
Pit.”

After the Bruins’ dismal performance during the
weekend’s Women’s Sports Foundation Basketball Classic
in New Mexico, it seems as though the Bruins are going to be stuck
in a hole the size of one.

UCLA lost to No. 5 Duke 80-52 on Friday in the
tournament’s opening match-up and fell to the host Lobos
75-54 in the consolation game Saturday night.

Michelle Greco scored 22 points against the Blue Devils and
posted a career-high 28 points against New Mexico to lead UCLA.

All during practice last week, UCLA head coach Kathy Olivier
stressed that Duke was a team that could quickly pull away.

“We miss a few shots here, leave a shooter open, and in
two minutes it’s 10-0,” Olivier said.

Though the game didn’t exactly start out like that, it had
a similar pattern. The Bruins pulled to within 13-12 in the first
half on a three-pointer by Greco, who scored 15 before
intermission.

The Blue Devils then engineered a 21-2 run to forge ahead to a
44-24 halftime lead. Georgia Schweitzer scored seven of her 14
points to fuel the run, and Duke outscored UCLA 9-0 in the first
three minutes of the second half.

The Bruins never recovered, making just 25 percent of their
field goals in the second half after missing their first 10 shots
of the period, the majority of which were layups. UCLA finished
with a 26 percent field goal clip, while Duke (2-0), which beat
LSU, 56-45 in the final, shot 54percent.

UCLA was hoping to have an easier time with the Lobos (1-1), the
only tournament team not ranked in any preseason poll, but that
didn’t happen. UCLA led 29-24 in the first half, but New
Mexico used an 11-0 run to take a 35-29 half-time lead.

New Mexico then used a 24-8 run to take a 59-37 lead, one of the
biggest of the game, with 9:42 to play. Jordan Adams led the Lobos
with 24 points and 11 rebounds.

Greco sprained her right ankle and left the game late in the
second half. Jalina Bradley, who emerged in exhibition play as a
possible replacement to fill some of the scoring void left by the
graduation departures of UCLA’s scoring core, had just 10
points in the two games. Bradley scored two points against New
Mexico on one-of-eight shooting, turning the ball over three
times.

Shalada Allen scored six points in a foul-plagued 17 minutes of
action, and Malika Leatham and Natalie Jarrett each scored five
against New Mexico.

Jarrett also had seven rebounds in each game to lead the
Bruins.