Team looks to its defense to hang tough in Tuscon

  DANIEL WONG/ Daily Bruin Senior Staff Junior point guard
Natalie Nakase will lead the women’s basketball
team against Pac-10 rival Arizona tonight.

By Bruce Tran
Daily Bruin Contributor

While Arizona is ranked seventh in the Pac-10 and UCLA is ranked
eighth in the conference, no two teams could be farther apart.

Arizona’s offense is high-scoring, relying on a quartet of
double-figure scorers. The Bruins utilize a physical style of
defense to win games, without a single double-digit scorer among
them.

The Wildcats are in the midst of a six-team struggle for the
second seed in the Pac-10 tournament. UCLA is just trying to stay
out of the basement.

Arizona has its go-to player, six-foot, four-inch center
Elizabeth Pickney, who averages 17.1 points per game and grabs 8.2
rebounds a contest. UCLA seemingly has a new one every night, and
sometimes, none at all.

Needless to say, both teams need this win ““ Arizona to
establish its position in the Pac-10 race and UCLA to prove it can
win a game other than against Washington State or Cal.

For the Bruins, the final four games of Pac-10 play will give
them an opportunity to refine their play as they enter the
tournament.

“I feel we’re in a position as a coaching staff that
we have to touch on every little aspect of the game,” said
head coach Kathy Olivier, who takes her team to Arizona (12-12, 8-7
Pac-10) tonight. “In our last game against USC, we did some
good things. But it seems as if every single time we step up in a
certain area, we go two steps backward in another.”

Indeed, the Trojans converted on just 36.8 percent of their
field goal attempts against the Bruin defense. However, UCLA (6-17,
3-11) couldn’t muster offense itself, with only sophomore
forward Whitney Jones in double figures as the Bruins fell,
71-58.

Thus, UCLA knows what it needs to do come away from the McKale
Center with a win. In their last meeting, the Bruins played the
Wildcats tough throughout before fading, 71-60. UCLA missed layups,
missed defensive assignments and simply missed opportunities in
general.

“Arizona can beat you in the halfcourt game, they can
shoot the three or they can go in transition,” Olivier said.
“Once you focus on stopping their offense, then Arizona will
kill you with rebounding. And once you stop that, you’re not
making shots yourself. It’s a constant challenge for us to
concentrate on each aspect and not overly focus on a certain
area.”

While UCLA knows the defense will be there, its offense has come
and gone. Nevertheless, Jones has quietly become a viable offensive
option, averaging 11.2 points per game over the last 10 games,
including dropping 17 in UCLA’s first meeting against
Arizona.

“Whitney’s been playing like this for the past three
or four weeks,” Olivier said. “Even while she was
struggling shooting-wise, she was a great defender and rebounder.
It’s just that she’s found her outside shot now, and
that’s helped us out a lot. Whitney does it all.”

For the Bruins to have a chance at beating the Wildcats, Whitney
will have to do it all.