This post was updated March 23 at 9:58 p.m.

Dozens of students donning navy blue and white “CBU” jerseys packed into the seats behind the east end basket.

The noticeable crowd of supporters made the trip from Riverside with the hope of witnessing a shocking upset inside Pauley Pavilion.

“To see their student section normally where the Den is for us, it was definitely interesting,” said sophomore guard Kiki Rice. “They did a great job bringing their fans here.”

But despite the Lancer crowd’s attempts at creating madness, the only true surprise came before the game even began.

Despite the unexpected absence of sophomore center Lauren Betts, No. 2 seed UCLA women’s basketball (26-6, 13-5 Pac-12) earned a wire-to-wire 84-55 victory over No. 15 seed California Baptist (28-4, 18-2 Western Athletic Conference) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night. Sophomore forward Gabriela Jaquez scored 19 points and grabbed seven rebounds in place of Betts in the starting lineup, while Rice led all scorers on the floor with 20 points and graduate student guard Charisma Osborne fell an assist shy of a triple-double to help the Bruins advance to the second round.

Coach Cori Close said Jaquez stepped up as usual to help fill Betts’ absence.

“It’s always more important to Gabs (Jaquez) to win than to do anything that she’s comfortable with,” Close said. “You look at over her first two years, and you look at the most pressurized moments and who was really the most comfortable in those moments – Gabs always rises to the top.”

With its primary interior threat off of the floor, UCLA turned to the 3-point line to generate offense in the opening quarter.Two weeks removed from draining five 3-pointers in her two Pac-12 tournament games, senior forward Angela Dugalić opened the Bruins’ NCAA Tournament run with a 3-point make on their first possession. 

The next time down the floor, sophomore guard Londynn Jones made it two triples on two possessions, and UCLA owned a 6-0 lead in less than 45 seconds.

But the perfect start from behind the arc did not foreshadow more success from deep for the Bruins.UCLA attempted seven 3-pointers on its next 10 shots and missed all of them. Jaquez provided the Bruins’ only make during a five-minute stretch with a layup, and then followed three consecutive 3-point misses with back-to-back layups.

While UCLA’s offense had a cold stretch, Cal Baptist’s failed to show up in the opening 10 minutes. The Lancers shot 3-of-18 from the field and 0-of-5 from deep, and a second 3-pointer from Dugalić with a minute to play was enough to give the Bruins a 17-8 lead after the opening period.

And the game of scoreless droughts was just beginning.

After six points in the opening four minutes of the second frame from sophomore guard Kiki Rice helped push UCLA’s lead to 12, the hosts were scoreless for nearly 3 1/2 minutes. The upset-minded Lancers took advantage of the Bruins’ subpar offense without Betts, using two consecutive four-point spurts from guard Anaiyah Tu’ua and forward Emily Sewell to help spark a 9-0 run.

With Cal Baptist’s packed student section and sideline supporters combining to make the loudest noise of the night at that point, coach Cori Close was forced to call a timeout to try to stop the bleeding. Suddenly the Bruins led by just three for the first time since the opening minute, and that potential March surprise began to look possible.

But as they did all night, the duo of Jaquez and Rice led the way for UCLA.

The pair of 2022 McDonald’s All Americans immediately combined for four points in a five-second span to ignite an 8-0 Bruin run in less than two minutes. A layup from Osborne in the closing seconds gave UCLA a 34-22 lead into the halftime break, but the run was just beginning.

The Bruins’ big three came out firing in the second half, as a Jaquez 3-pointer on the opening possession was immediately followed by an Osborne pull-up jumper in transition. Seconds later, Osborne – the two-time All-Pac-12 Defensive Team honoree – stole a Lancer pass and found Rice for an and-one layup.

Suddenly, that same raucous crowd of Lancers was overpowered by the majority of the 8,841 in attendance that were donning blue and gold.

“It makes it fun when the other team has fans and the crowd is going back and forth when we’re going back and forth,” Osborne said.

There would be no Cinderella story tonight.

The ensuing Rice free throw completed the 8-0 run over the first 52 seconds of the half, and the once 24-21 UCLA lead was now 42-22.

It wouldn’t fall below 14 points for the remainder of the game.

The Bruins outscored the Lancers 50-33 in the second half and closed the contest on an 11-0 run in the final three minutes to pull away and avoid a contested finish. Osborne finished with 15 points, 15 rebounds, nine assists and three steals, while Jones scored UCLA’s final five points to finish with 12 for the game.

“At halftime we felt good – we knew that we weren’t hitting our shots, but we felt like it was going to fall in the second half,” Rice said. “Guarding by ourselves, defending without fouling and really just keeping to attack in transition, I think we came out (in the) beginning of the third quarter and did those things really well.”

The quartet of Rice, Jaquez, Osborne and Jones ultimately combined for 66 points and simultaneously helped hold Cal Baptist to 55 points on 28.8% shooting from the field to set up a matchup with No. 7 seed Creighton in Pauley Pavilion on Monday.