After concluding its regular season with an 73-50 win over crosstown rival USC on Sunday, No. 2 UCLA women’s basketball (28-1, 18-0) heads to Indianapolis, Indiana for its second-ever Big Ten tournament as the reigning champions. The top-seeded team will face No. 8 seed Washington (21-9, 10-8) on Friday at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse after earning a double bye. The Daily Bruin’s women’s basketball beat predicts UCLA’s tournament outcomes.
[Related: UCLA women’s basketball defends undefeated Big Ten record with away win over USC]
Kai Dizon
Daily Bruin senior staff
Prediction: Quarterfinal exit
I am scared.
Really scared.
UCLA has lost just once this season, and they have won 22 games since.
Most may think the Bruins would face little resistance defending their Big Ten tournament crown. And I was one of those many.
But then I saw the 1996 blockbuster “Space Jam.”
In the cinematic masterpiece, the Nerdlucks transform into the Monstars by stealing the basketball talent of several NBA players.
With their skills zapped, affected players – including stars like Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing – become physically unable to play basketball.
I fear the film foretells the Bruins’ future.
Sure, UCLA would normally make easy work of Washington – its quarterfinal opponent – but what if Friday’s bout does not go as expected at all?
What if the Bruins’ starters – no, entire team – have their basketball prowess snatched by a strange looking figure wearing a trench coat?
In “Space Jam,” Michael Jordan is able to save the day with a buzzer-beating slam dunk, but even “Michael’s Secret Stuff” might not be enough to give the Hall of Famer a chance at 63 years old.
Friday won’t be pretty. No one will know what is going on.
Coach Cori Close will dig through her bench for a lineup – even a single player – that can simply dribble a basketball but to no avail.
We could only hope Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are able to restore the Bruins’ powers by the time the NCAA Tournament rolls around.
Sabrina Messiha
Daily Bruin senior staff
Prediction: Big Ten championship over Michigan
UCLA’s narrowest win this season was a three-point victory over Michigan.
No other team has come close except for Ohio State, which broke the 10-point loss gap. And that was early in the Bruins’ conference play.
Since its loss to No. 4 Texas in November, UCLA has rarely shown moments of struggle or weakness. The majority of games followed the same narrative: The Bruins take the lead within the first two minutes of the game and keep that lead until the final buzzer.
But the Bruins fell behind in the first period against the Wolverines. They eventually found the lead again, but the initial struggle meant a tight game.
While Iowa may rank second in the Big Ten and be numerically slotted to make the Big Ten tournament championship, it is by a paper-thin margin. Michigan and Iowa hold the same conference record going into the tournament, with the differentiating factor between the second and third seed being Iowa’s head-to-head win.
Then-No. 13 Iowa took down then-No. 6 Michigan with 18 turnovers in the first frame of the matchup. Three-pointers spurred the Hawkeyes to a second period run in which they took and separated the lead.
But I don’t think that will happen again if Iowa and Michigan meet up in the semifinal round. The Wolverines know they can get into close grasp of the trophy if they take down the Hawkeyes. And that’s what will get them through to the championship.
But when the Wolverines face the Bruins, they still won’t be able to get past the Big Ten regular season champions. In order to shut down UCLA, opposing teams need to shut down 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts – who logged a 16 point, 16 rebound double-double against the Wolverines.
[Related: UCLA women’s basketball narrowly beats Michigan in 69-66 nail-biter]
And while shutting down Lauren Betts is a tall task to conquer, successfully double- or triple-teaming the center means leaving a starting line-up of predicted first-round WNBA draft picks open to sink shot-after-shot.
Frankly, I don’t think there are many teams that would be able to do that. And evidently, no Big Ten team could.
Sinclair Richman
Daily Bruin contributor
Prediction: Big Ten championship over Michigan
Dominant.
That is the only word that can be used to describe the Bruins this season, and there is no reason why it wouldn’t carry into the postseason.
The squad has already proven it can make light work of its first opponent, defeating Washington by a 15-point margin in the team’s last matchup.
UCLA will likely then face off against either No. 4 seed Minnesota – which it defeated by 18 points – or No. 5 seed Ohio State. Ohio State could prove more of a challenge, with UCLA only winning its Dec. 28 matchup against the former by seven – one of its two conference games won by a margin of less than 10 points.
But the deciding factor throughout conference play has been Lauren Betts. No one has found an answer to the Big Ten Player of the Year’s strength, size and overall skill. She has scored double-digits in her last 19 games played and is shooting 56.8% from the field.
And the back-to-back Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year doesn’t just show out on offense. Betts is averaging a conference-high 9.6 rebounds and has collected 35 blocks through the season.
Betts will be the key piece once more in the Big Ten championship game, where the team will likely face No. 3 seed Michigan.
The Wolverines – despite their seeding – are the second-strongest team in the conference, with three of their five losses coming to top-five teams by respective margins of three points. But still, with their tallest players standing at 6-foot-3, Betts collected a double-double with 16 points and rebounds the last time the teams met on Feb. 8.
Betts’ consistency, backed by the guard play around her, makes the Bruins a team that cannot be stopped – especially not by a Big Ten squad.
Noah Massey
Daily Bruin staff
Prediction: Championship loss to Michigan
One month ago, the Bruins barely escaped Ann Arbor with their undefeated conference record intact.
It took a missed 3-pointer by Michigan guard Syla Swords with just two seconds remaining to seal the game for UCLA – its only single-score victory this season.
The Wolverines shot just 37% from the field and 24% from beyond the arc in their sole contest against the Bruins – both figures more than 10% worse than their season averages.
This time, UCLA won’t be so fortunate.
Playing in Indianapolis – located just four hours from Ann Arbor – the Wolverines will stay near their home court where they went 14-1 this season and remain in their own time zone. This advantage could be paramount, as both squads will have to play three games in three days to reach the finals – the only time this season that either team will play on three consecutive days.
The last time UCLA played on consecutive days at a neutral site, it posted its only loss of the season – a 76-65 defeat to Texas.
If the Bruins struggle due to limited rest and the road environment, the Wolverines could capitalize and win their first-ever Big Ten tournament after playing in the tournament for 31 years.
This exact story worked out for the Bruins last season when the Trojans – who defeated them twice during the regular season and had just one conference loss – forgot how to shoot the basketball in the second half of the championship game. With this, UCLA came back from a 10-point deficit in the second half despite not playing to its full potential that day – the Trojans attempted 26 more shots and grabbed 21 offensive rebounds than the Bruins.
While UCLA will certainly enter the game with the upper hand, anything can happen in March Madness – especially when both teams enter the game on short rest.
And this time, it will be the Wolverines who will ruin UCLA’s spotless Big Ten record.
Willa Campion
Assistant Sports editor
Prediction: Semifinal exit to Minnesota
Defense wins championships.
This has been one of Close’s go-to slogans this season. Even after games where the Bruins vanquished a team by nearly 40 points, their coach would point to a lower-than-average rebounding statistic or period where they failed to attack 50-50 balls and say her squad needs to do better.
And Close is right – UConn’s 82-59 win over South Carolina in last year’s national title game exemplifies this.
Even if they shot their fifth-lowest clip from the 3-point line all season, the Huskies dominated their opponent by limiting the Gamecocks to their lowest field goal shooting percentage since their season opener.
So if defense wins championships, No. 5 seed Minnesota is the team to watch.
The Golden Gophers rank fifth among Power Four teams in fewest points allowed – an impressive feat for a squad that did not grace the top 25 rankings until week 15. Minnesota’s wins over No. 5 seed Ohio State – by a larger margin than the Bruins managed – and No. 2 seed Iowa bolster this ascendancy.
In their victory over the Hawkeyes in Iowa City – a rowdy environment where Michigan lost by nearly 20 last month – the Golden Gophers doubled their opponents rebounds while shooting 71.4% from beyond the arc off 14 attempts.
Guards Amaya Battle and Tori McKinney, who are both Big Ten All-Defense selections, helped lead Minnesota to 250 steals this season compared to the 307 turnovers committed. UCLA, even while boasting the reigning Naismith Defensive Player of the Year, trails with 234 steals to 358 turnovers in the same number of games played.
Call me biased – one of my earliest memories is meeting Minnesota mascot Goldy Gopher at my cousin’s birthday party – but I think that if there is any team to give the Bruins a run for their money, it is the Golden Gophers.
What may be an otherwise mundane tournament, apart from a potential rematch between No. 3 seed Michigan and No. 2 seed Iowa, could be made interesting by a Minnesota squad that has the makings to spoil UCLA’s back-to-back championship bid.
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