No. 3 UCLA women hold off No. 25 Illinois in Lauren Betts’ return
LOS ANGELES — A full-strength UCLA women’s basketball team snapped Illinois’ winning streak, pulling away in the fourth quarter to beat the Fighting Illini, 70-55, on Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion.
Lauren Betts, who sat out Sunday’s 75-69 victory over No. 22 Michigan State because of a right foot injury, scored 22 points and blocked six shots, giving her a single-season program record 67. Betts shot 9 for 18 from the field and grabbed seven rebounds in 34 minutes.
The new record surpasses current Golden State Valkyries player Monique Billings’ previous mark of 66 blocks.
“She’s left such a great legacy in this program,” Betts said. “I’m just super honored to have a record like that. Just really honored and really grateful.”
Kiki Rice added 16 points, five rebounds and two blocks for third-ranked UCLA (25-1 overall, 13-1 Big Ten Conference), while Angela Dugalić chipped in 10 points and eight rebounds.
With three regular-season games remaining, the Bruins are close to securing a double bye into the quarterfinals of next month’s conference tournament.
Adani McKenzie led Illinois (21-6, 11-5) with 18 points. Berry Wallace scored 13, and Kendall Bostic had eight points and 11 rebounds.
It was the Bruins’ second straight win since a loss to USC dropped them from the top spot in the Associated Press Top 25 poll.
Illinois had won eight straight games despite dealing with injuries throughout this season. Just eight players suited up for the Illini on Thursday night and each of them played at least 18 minutes in the first half alone.
The short-handed visitors remained scrappy throughout the game. UCLA barely outrebounded Illinois 38-37 and the Illini scored 21 points in the third quarter to stay in the game.
“We all take accountability for that as players and our coaches preach to us every single day the importance of rebounding,” Rice said. “A team that only has a few players out-hustled us in a lot of ways … that’s gonna hurt us down the stretch in closer games against different teams. We really need to fix that now.”
The Illini, who trailed by 15 points early in the second half, used an 11-4 run over the last four minutes of the third quarter to get within four going into the final period. McKenzie had seven points during the rally.
“I’ve said all year,” Illinois coach Shauna Green said. “It’s unfortunate, our injuries, but it’s part of it and there’s no excuses. We haven’t talked one thing about excuses when we were winning so we’re sure as hell not going to start them now.”
Illinois pulled within 48-44 with 6:55 remaining on a Genesis Bryant 3-pointer, but UCLA put it out of reach with eight straight points, including five by Rice.
Betts resumed her role in the post for UCLA, which finished with a 46-24 scoring advantage in the paint. Gabriela Jaquez and Betts teamed up for an outside-in scoring approach that got the Bruins points even when they weren’t being the most aggressive, especially on the boards.
“On the one hand, I’m really proud that they found a way. And this time of year, it’s about finding a way,” UCLA head coach Cori Close said. “On the other hand, we are not playing with the kind of fervor, passion, focus, aggression that I’ve seen from our team and we’ve got to figure that out really fast.”
Londynn Jones – whose usual role is scoring from long range – was critical off the ball to make contributions on defense. She drove in for a layup as part of a 7-0 UCLA run in the second quarter and later grabbed a steal for a breakaway layup.
UCLA, which shot 51.7% in the first half, closed the opening 20 minutes with a 13-2 run for a 32-18 advantage at halftime.
Janiah Barker left the game with 7:05 remaining in the second quarter and returned to the bench in the second half but did not get back into the game. Close said in the postgame press conference that she likely suffered a lower leg injury.
“I did talk to our doc [at halftime] and didn’t think it was something serious,” Close said. “They were going to try to see if she could run up and down and go at halftime and obviously she wasn’t able to do so, but I haven’t gotten any update further from that.”
Barker recorded her first double-double as a Bruin in Sunday’s win.
UP NEXT
UCLA plays at Iowa on Sunday at 11 a.m. PT.