Tuesday, February 17, 1998
Valentine’s Day massacre can’t heal all wounds of Cardinal
loss
W.HOOPS: Victory at Cal good for spirit, but Stanford defeat
still stings
By David Arnold
Daily Bruin Contributor
Downtown Oakland wasn’t the most romantic place for 12 women to
be stuck on Valentine’s Day, but it was just right for the UCLA
women’s basketball team.
Just the right place to tag and release a couple of Golden
Bears.
Just the right place to take the pent-up frustration from
Thursday’s loss to Stanford out on a Cal team whose Head Coach
Marianne Stanley excuses them for being merely a "rebuilding
team."
It was a 86-54 Valentine’s Day massacre. Love (not even
brotherly, fellow-UC love) wasn’t a factor. Home court advantage
wasn’t a factor for the Bears (5-17, 1-11) either, like it had been
in the noisy Maples Pavillion for the Cardinal, because there were
only 657 people there. One of the few intangibles that was a factor
was UCLA’s (15-7, 10-3) disapointment with their loss to the
Cardinal. Because of that loss, the Bruins, formerly alone in
second in the Pac-10 with a shot at first, not only watched their
hopes of a conference crown slip away, but also find themselves
tied for second with Oregon again.
Ask the Bruins, and they’ll say defense wins them games. "When
our defense is working we can do so many more things," said Head
Coach Kathy Olivier.
Nevermind the four straight 80 point games or the conference’s
second leading offense. When their defense isn’t working, like it
didn’t against Stanford, who had their first 100 point game of the
season against the Bruins, they are in trouble.
But the Bruins didn’t have much trouble with Cal, for it might
have been a game, but it was never really a contest. In the first
half alone Cal had 16 turnovers (more than the Bruins had all day)
and 11 personal fouls, while the Bruins had seven first half
steals. After a 17-point halftime lead, it looked more like a
playground game, with UCLA making every transition basket they were
given. And most pitiful of all: the game was only ever tied for a
total of 26 seconds, and Cal never obtained the lead for the entire
game. The only thing that’s beaten California harder is El
Nino.
"Steals lead to easy baskets," said Stanley, who boiled her
team’s bad performance down to, "Some of the decisions we make are
not good, some of the passes we make are not good."
"I don’t think they’re bad, I think we played extremely well
today," said Olivier, meaning she would prefer the game viewed as a
hard-fought rebound from a loss that showed team character, not
just another pasting of a poor team.
The Bruins finally accomplished something they’ve been working
on for weeks, though: they got every player to play in the first
half, and they got every player to score. Granted, these do not
seem like crucial goals to be met, but this is something they’ve
been trying for weeks now, and when you’re up by 35 with seven
minutes left you’ve got to have something to do, right?
It was, however, not just a great team game, it was also great
for personal stats. Forward Maylana Martin scored 28 points, and
point guard Erica Gomez served up a season-high 12 assists and
thieved her way to six steals. ‘This one here," said Olivier,
gesturing to Martin, "she set the tone."
"I just wanted to play real hard," said Martin modestly, who
then explained the teams Stanford loss by saying, "We felt like we
fell apart."
Was a 32-point win against Cal enough to heal the wounds
inflicted by the Cardinal? Could another Valentine’s Day massacre
make the road trip worth while?
"We’re disapointed, I mean this is a team that has very high
goals," said Olivier. But Saturday was still great for team spirit,
not only because of the easy win, but also because they got to hear
their coach say things like: "We’re destined to go to the
tournament," and of Stanford, "We’re hoping to meet them
again."