Women’s basketball wrangles Colorado in penultimate game of regular season
Freshman guard Camryn Brown came off the bench for No. 9 UCLA women’s basketball and posted a career-high eight points in 22 minutes – the most she’s logged in a Pac-12 game this season. (Kristie-Valerie Hoang/Daily Bruin senior staff)
Women's basketball
| Colorado | 52 |
| No. 9 UCLA | 62 |
By Michael Waldman
Feb. 29, 2020 6:51 p.m.
It was Asian Heritage Night at Pauley Pavilion for the Bruins’ second-to-last home game of the regular season.
Redshirt junior guard Natalie Chou – UCLA’s lone Asian American player – led the contest in bench points, scoring 10 points on 3-of-10 shooting as part of the Bruins’ 21-8 edge in bench scoring.
No. 9 UCLA women’s basketball (24-4, 13-4 Pac-12) defeated Colorado (16-12, 5-12) 62-52 on Friday night, avoiding what would have been its first multiple-game losing streak of the season.
Chou registered double-digit scoring for the sixth time this season, and coach Cori Close said the night was important to the transfer guard.
“(Chou) is really the total package,” Close said. “She is absolutely driven to be the best basketball player. Her biggest passion is to provide for someone else maybe (what) she didn’t have – a female role model.”
Second in the Bruins’ bench-scoring was freshman guard Camryn Brown, who entered the game averaging just 1.0 points per game.
Brown scored a career-high eight points off the bench while logging a personal-high in minutes in conference play with 22 minutes on the floor.
“I like to build up the confidence that I have to play the games and practice, and I know (my teammates) were there to support me,” Brown said. “I just wanted to come out here and be the spark that my team needed wherever they needed me to be.”
UCLA opened the game on an 11-2 run and converted on seven of its first eight field-goal attempts.
Junior forward Michaela Onyenwere went 4-of-7 from the field in the first quarter – equaling her number of made field goals for the last two games combined in that frame alone. She finished with 16 points and nine rebounds.
The Bruins led by as many as 14 points before the break, until the Buffaloes cut the lead to single digits to make the game 31-23 at halftime. Colorado was held to 33.3% from the field in the first half and finished the contest with that same percentage. Guard Mya Hollingshed led the Buffaloes with 22 points on 7-of-13 from the field and a perfect 6-of-6 from the free throw line.
In its last matchup with UCLA, Colorado came back from a 25-point deficit to get within two points, but this time around the Buffaloes were unable to shrink their second-half deficit to fewer than six points after a 9-0 run for the Bruins was punctuated by a slashing layup from redshirt senior guard Japreece Dean.
Dean attributed the stretch that extended the Bruins’ lead to 42-27 with 5:32 left in the third quarter to the collective squad.
“(Our 9-0 run) was very team-oriented,” Dean said. “I think that we hunted the paint and used ball fakes (because) they extended in that zone, so I think it was important to attack the paint and find shooters.”
Dean chipped in 12 points on the night, while her teammate junior forward Lauryn Miller returned to the starting lineup but equaled her season-low scoring total for the second consecutive game with two points.
Junior guard Chantel Horvat – after playing just nine minutes in the Bruins’ victory over Washington State on Feb. 21 – did not dress for the contest.
UCLA’s regular season – which began with the best start to a campaign in program history – will conclude at home against Utah at 1 p.m. A Bruin win in the last regular-season game for Dean and senior forward Ally Rosenblum would earn UCLA the second seed in the Pac-12 tournament.
