This post was updated Feb. 6 at 11:07 p.m.
When the Golden Bears came to town a season ago, the Bruins secured a 34-point victory to win their fourth straight game.
It was a different story Sunday afternoon when UCLA women’s basketball (10-7, 5-5 Pac-12) defeated California (10-6, 1-4) by a score of 59-54 in Pauley Pavilion to snap a three-game losing streak. With the down-to-the-wire win, the blue and gold narrowly avoided losing a fourth consecutive game for the first time since the 2018-2019 campaign.
Coach Cori Close said though the win wasn’t pretty, it was a sight for sore eyes after her team took its biggest loss of the season to No. 2 Stanford three days earlier.
“It was all those gritty, non-glamorous things that allowed us to pull this game out,” Close said. “We’re on the struggle bus, not going to sugarcoat it. I don’t think we’re back emotionally – that was a real gut punch against Stanford.”
Neither team led by more than six in the first half, and the game remained within seven points until the Bruins were finally able to pull away by making 11 free throws in the last minute of regulation. Graduate student forward IImar’I Thomas led the Bruins with 16 points on the afternoon, while graduate student guard Natalie Chou chipped in 11 – including eight in the fourth quarter alone.
UCLA made three consecutive shots to take an early 6-0 lead, after which Cal was able to record its first points of the afternoon off a layup from guard/forward Dalayah Daniels. The Golden Bears committed two of their eight first-quarter turnovers on the ensuing possessions and didn’t score for another three minutes.
Though UCLA wasn’t able to make more than 33.3% of its shots in the opening period, it was able to maintain the lead by relying on its defense, holding Cal to eight shot attempts compared to 18 for the blue and gold.
After a last-second scoop layup from redshirt freshman guard Dominique Onu to end the quarter, the Bruins led 12-6 after 10 minutes of play, with six different players contributing two points each.
The tides shifted to start the second period, as UCLA’s lone field goal through the first 7:48 of the quarter came on a layup from Thomas a minute and a half in. Thanks to defensive stops and two free throws each from Thomas and redshirt senior guard Chantel Horvat, the team was able to hold the lead until Onu broke the field-goal drought by draining a fast-break floater with just over two minutes remaining in the half.
“It’s like we were stuck in mud out there,” Close said. “Thank goodness for our defense because our offense was equally that bad.”
Although the Golden Bears had their opportunities, they weren’t able to take the lead after tying the game with 1:24 to play in the half. Neither team would score for the remainder of the period, and after a steal from Horvat on the last possession, the Bruins managed to keep the score knotted at 22 apiece heading into the halftime break.
Cal guard Jayda Curry – who entered the matchup as the only player in the Pac-12 averaging more points per game than junior guard Charisma Osborne with 20.4 per contest – recorded a game-high seven points in the half but did so on seven shot attempts. Curry finished the afternoon with 12 points on 4-of-17 shooting from the field.
Osborne scored a season-low eight points in the game on 1-of-9 shooting but still played all 40 minutes in the contest. Close said Osborne’s value comes from more than just her scoring, as she was able to hold Curry to her second game of the season with fewer than 13 points.
“She’s one of the best perimeter defenders in the country,” Close said. “It wasn’t her best night offensively for sure, but I couldn’t take her off the floor because no one could guard and slow down Curry the way that Charisma can.”
Thomas put up the first points of the second half, but Cal took its first lead of the game when guard Cailyn Crocker converted an and-1 at the 7:28 mark of the third quarter, putting her team up 25-24. The lead was short-lived, as two free throws from Thomas put her team back on top a minute later after she was double-teamed and fouled down low.
“I just take it as a respect thing that I get double- and triple-teamed,” Thomas said. “Just making the right reads is important, whether that is me scoring quickly or finding my open teammates.”
Both teams continued to struggle from the field, shooting a combined 7-of-35 in the third period as the game remained within three points for the first nine minutes of the quarter.
In the final minute of the period, a fast-break 3-pointer from guard Jazlen Green extended the Golden Bears’ lead to four – their largest of the game to that point. Green sank her third long-range shot of the quarter two possessions later to stretch the lead to seven.
The Bruins trimmed the deficit to 36-31 entering the final period off a layup from junior guard Camryn Brown. To start the final quarter, Chou recorded the team’s first 3-pointer of the afternoon off an assist from Brown, bringing it back to a one-possession game.
Brown was in the starting lineup for the first time since making her season debut Sunday against Oregon State and for the second time in her collegiate career. Close said her return has had an immediate positive impact on the team.
“Her impact on the game is really hard to overstate,” Close said. “She’s one of the smartest IQ players I’ve ever been around – the way she taught herself our offense, tweaks that we’re doing, executing every scouting report before she could even play.”
Chou sank another 3-pointer two minutes later, and UCLA managed to tie the game again 4 ½ minutes into the final frame. From there, Thomas scored five straight points before the two teams traded scores for the following three possessions.
After shooting 1-of-6 against Stanford on Thursday, Thomas led the team with 15 shot attempts against Cal, making five. The forward recorded her first double-double as a Bruin, finishing with 15 points to go along with 12 rebounds – including six on the offensive glass.
With the win, the Bruins earned their 10th win over the Golden Bears in the two teams’ last 11 matchups – including eight in a row – while Cal hasn’t won at Pauley Pavilion since January 2015.
Brown said the win is a step in the right direction, but the team still has work to do before it gets to where it wants to be.
“We’ve been talking about all week how we’re going to respond, and I think we did really, really well in our response,” Brown said. “We just got to turn it around and keep building on this momentum here.”
