Women’s basketball advances to Pac-12 tournament final with win over Arizona

This post was updated March 5 at 11:52 p.m.

After losing to the Wildcats in their lone matchup of the regular season, the Bruins got revenge in the postseason.

No. 9 UCLA women’s basketball (16-4, 12-4 Pac-12) defeated No. 11 Arizona (16-5, 13-4) 58-49 to advance to the conference championship game for the first time since 2016. The win comes after the Bruins were defeated 68-65 in their first conference game of the season Dec. 4.

The first quarter ended all square at eight despite the Bruins attempting six more shots than the Wildcats. UCLA forced six turnovers and secured four offensive rebounds to get the extra shots, but shot 3-of-16 to tie its fourth-lowest scoring quarter of the season.

When referencing the team’s struggles, coach Cori Close said the team will need to be better offensively throughout the remainder of March.

“I think anyone watching us would say we have a lot of room to improve on the offensive end of the floor,” Close said. “At this point in the year it’s really about matchups, and how do you adjust game by game. It’s going to be a completely different game plan (tomorrow) than it was tonight.”

In a matchup featuring two of the conference’s three highest-scoring guards this season, only one was able to score in the first half. Sophomore guard Charisma Osborne, who shot 6-of-21 in the lone regular-season matchup against Arizona, missed all six of her first-half shot attempts and was held scoreless while Pac-12 Player of the Year guard Aari McDonald scored eight points.

Even with Osborne’s statistical struggles, Close said the guard was successful in leading her team to victory.

“McDonald is a great player – so is (Osborne),” Close said. “It wasn’t about stats tonight, it was about doing whatever our team needed to win the game and that’s exactly what Charisma Osborne did.”

Despite outscoring Osborne, McDonald was held to 2-of-9 shooting in the first half. The Bruins held the Wildcats to their lowest-scoring half of the season in the first 20 minutes as Arizona shot 6-of-22 and scored just 17 points.

After shooting 18.8% in the first quarter, the Bruins shot 46.7% in the second quarter to outscore the Wildcats 17-9. Arizona missed its last 10 field goals and senior forward Michaela Onyenwere scored six of her 10 first-half points in the quarter to give UCLA a 25-17 lead at halftime.

Onyenwere said Osborne’s defense on McDonald was the key to slowing down Arizona’s offense.

“I’m just super proud of (Osborne),” Onyenwere said. “She was the primary person who was on her, and it was a battle for the whole 40 minutes between those two. She’s a lockdown defender and she’s the person who, (when) we need somebody to get a stop, we’re going to go to (Osborne).”

After missing 11 straight shots, the Wildcats’ offense came alive to start the second half, opening the third quarter on a 7-0 run that cut the lead to one point. 

The Bruins responded with a 9-0 run of their own, including a fast break 3 from redshirt junior guard Lindsey Corsaro. The make was just the third 3 of the game for both teams through the first three quarters.

The fourth-quarter scoring was dominated by the team’s leading scorers. After a pair of Onyenwere free throws with 9:36 left in the game put the Bruins up 10, McDonald responded with four straight points of her own on the next two Wildcat possessions. 

McDonald went on to score 12 of Arizona’s 21 fourth-quarter points, while Onyenwere scored eight of UCLA’s 20. Both finished with 24 points to lead their teams, but McDonald had four more turnovers and five more missed shots than Onyenwere. 

After the back-and-fourth quarter between the two, Onyenwere said McDonald deserved praise for her performance.

“Just credit to Aari McDonald – she’s just a great player and she has been her whole career,” Onyenwere said. “Our whole scout is basically designed to stop Aari, and she still had 24. That just goes to show just what type of player that she is. It’s tough game planning around somebody who’s going to be a future WNBA draft pick.”

After Arizona cut the lead to two with just over a minute to play, Onyenwere finished a fast break layup to start a 9-2 run to finish the game. Onyenwere and Osborne went a combined 10-of-10 from the free throw line and the Bruins ultimately eliminated the Wildcats.

Onyenwere said staying prepared allowed her to finish things off in crunch time. 

“I just wanted to stay really steady for my team – I didn’t do a great job of that yesterday in our game against Washington,” Onyenwere said. “When they were able to make that run, I saw that I had the advantage a little bit and so just be able to take it to the basket, it was pretty wide open when I got down there.”

UCLA will face No. 4 Stanford in the Pac-12 championship game Sunday at 5 p.m.