TUCSON, Ariz. — Londynn Jones scored 16 points, Lauren Betts had 11 points and 12 rebounds, and No. 8 UCLA dominated on the boards in a 61-41 win at Arizona on Saturday night in the regular season finale for both teams.
The Bruins (24-5, 13-5 Pac-12) shot 57.5% and outrebounded Arizona 43-17. They held a fifth consecutive opponent under 60 points and third straight below 30% shooting.
“If you’re going to be playing something of an elite level on a consistent basis, you want to build from defense and rebounding,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “I think the bottom line for us is that we are playing at a really, really high level on the defensive end and the rebounding end.”
Betts had her 10th double-double of the season while Jones was 5 of 9 from the field including 4 of 7 from 3-point range. Gabriela Jaquez added 11 on 5-of-6 shooting for UCLA.
Arizona (16-14, 8-10) looked exhausted after coming off a double-overtime home loss to No. 7 USC on Thursday night. The Wildcats shot only 28.3% and got a bulk of their scoring by forcing 30 UCLA turnovers.
Helena Pueyo led Arizona with 16 points and six steals.
“This was not our best basketball,” Pueyo said.
UCLA led 33-18 at halftime thanks to 60.9% shooting, holding Arizona to 23.3% from the field. The Bruins stayed hot in the third quarter, making three of its first four shots, but then went more than three minutes without a field goal before hitting three in a row to build a 49-26 advantage with 1:58 to go in the period.
A 9-0 run put UCLA up by 15 early in the second quarter.
BIG PICTURE
UCLA: Senior guard Charisma Osborne added two to her NCAA-era school record for scoring, now at 2,201 points for her career. The overall scoring leader for the Bruins is Denise Curry, who from 1977-81 at the AIAW level had 3,198 points.
Arizona: The Wildcats faced their 11th-ranked opponent this season, the most in school history. Eight of those have been against top 10 teams, including three of their last…
Read the full article here
