PATIL ARMENIAN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Junior guard
Michelle Greco drives against a Cougar defender in
a victory last night. UCLA 93 Washington State
61
By Joshua Mason
Daily Bruin Reporter
It was the type of game the Bruins had been working for all
year.
In their strongest performance of the season, the UCLA
women’s team (5-23, 4-13 Pac-10) shook up the Washington
State Cougars (11-16, 6-11) with an opening 30-6 drive, and never
stopped to look back on their way to a 93-61 finish.
Though every Bruin were able to see some minutes, it was
sophomore forward Kristee Porter and junior guard Michelle Greco
who stole the show for most of the game.
In the contest’s first few minutes, Greco picked up the
1,000th point of her UCLA career. She finished the night with 25
points and nine rebounds in her bid to gain the Pac-10 scoring
crown by weekend’s end.
Porter finished with a career-high 32 points on 16-of-24
shooting from the field and garnered her fifth double-double of the
season by adding 11 rebounds. She also added two blocks, four
steals and an attempted dunk to her standout performance against
the Cougars.
“When Kristee plays like she did tonight, I’ll pass
it to her every time,” Greco said of Porter’s
performance. “You could just feel the confidence she had in
her game. It was amazing.”
The win was a huge momentum booster for a Bruin squad heading
into its season finale with no chance at postseason play.
“This is our March Madness,” said Head Coach Kathy
Olivier. “It’s something that we can take with us as a
team going into next year. We talked about it and really worked
hard for this, and I think our players deserve it.”
The Bruins were on fire for the duration of the game, dominating
in areas they often struggle with. The team converted 12 of 17 free
throws (70.6 percent) on the night, a category with which they
usually have trouble in close games.
“We came into the game talking about how our defense
generates our offense and we did a great job of applying that early
on,” Porter said. “We got that early lead, and you
could just tell that we were having fun out there.”
The Bruins added to their conference lead in steals with 16, and
out-rebounded the Cougars by a margin of 51 to 36. They also shot
an impressive 52.1 percent overall (20 of 36) from the field.
“We feel like we’re a team that has competed with
everyone in the Pac-10 this year, and we’re excited to be
heading into Saturday against the top team in the
conference,” Olivier said.
With this inspiring win, the Bruins have positioned themselves
in a realistic stance to play spoiler to Washington on
Saturday.
The conference-leading Huskies were upset by the Trojans
Thursday night by a score of 88-76, and a loss to UCLA would give
Arizona State the ability to control its own destiny in the quest
for the Pac-10 championship.
Tipoff Saturday is at 1 p.m. as the Bruins face the Huskies
(19-8, 12-5) at Pauley Pavilion.