Early lead turned into a win over rival USC for UCLA women’s basketball
Sophomore guard Charisma Osborne put up 18 points in No. 11 UCLA women’s basketball’s victory over USC. Osborne scored 13 of her points in the first quarter and also finished with a team-high six assists. (Amy Zhang/Daily Bruin senior staff)
Women's basketball
| No. 11 UCLA | 73 |
| USC | 52 |
By Francis Moon
Dec. 13, 2020 2:30 p.m.
This post was updated Dec. 13 at 3:52 p.m.
The Bruins jumped out to an early lead and never looked back.
No. 11 UCLA women’s basketball (4-1, 2-1 Pac-12) defeated USC (1-3, 0-3) by a final score of 73-52 at the Galen Center on Sunday.
UCLA started the game a perfect 6-of–6 from the field while holding the Trojans scoreless for a stretch of around four minutes after their early 4 points. After starting with a quick 18-4 advantage, the Bruins would hold on to the lead for the rest of the game.
Senior forward Michaela Onyenwere led the way with 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting, while sophomore guard Charisma Osborne posted 18 points – 13 of which came in the opening period – and a team-high six of the Bruins’ 22 assists.
“Last year gave us a lot of motivation to come out and start strong,” Osborne said. “Especially with how it ended (at the Galen Center) last year, we knew we needed to come out and win and just be on top of the scouting report and just focus.”
Osborne also recorded a team-high six of the Bruins’ 22 assists. Eight of the Bruins’ first 10 field goals came off an assist.
“That was one of our keys to the game was to move the ball, and we’ve been working on it a lot in practice these past couple of days,” Osborne said. “So that was a huge focus for all of us and I think that we really tried to pass the ball and move it so that we could get good shots for each other, and it worked.”
Redshirt senior guard Natalie Chou, the third Bruin in double figures, contributed 10 points and two 3-pointers in 20 minutes off the bench.
Prior to Sunday’s game, coach Cori Close emphasized how important it is for her team to stay focused and aggressive, particularly on the defensive end. The Bruins responded by forcing 18 turnovers and holding the Trojans to their lowest scoring output of the season. UCLA also held a 44-29 advantage on the boards, led by nine from redshirt junior guard Chantel Horvat in her second game since being elevated to the starting five.
“The thing I was most pleased about was the defensive rebounding and boxing out as well as transition defense,” said coach Cori Close. “I really don’t think we got beat very much in transition. I thought we stopped the ball early and made them set their offense, which is what we wanted to do.”
The Trojans continued to hang around in the second quarter and trimmed the lead to 42-30 by halftime, but were unable to keep up after the break. USC was held without a field goal for the first 13 minutes of the second half – including the entire third quarter – and coughed up eight turnovers in the third period alone.
Forward Jordan Sanders led the way for USC with 12 points on 50% shooting. The Trojans led the Pac-12 with a 40.7% 3-point shooting percentage coming into the matchup, but were held to 36.7% from the field and 23.5% from 3.
Onyenwere said the Bruins will look to maintain their defensive momentum for upcoming matchups.
“We know that we have a lot of big competitors coming up and so we’re just holding our standard regardless of the score,” Onyenwere said. “So that’s something (we) press into our defense, something that we really harp on and preach on in our program.”
UCLA will continue its conference schedule at home against California on Sunday and against No. 1 Stanford on Monday.
