The UCSB women’s basketball team came into Saturday’s contest against UCLA with a big goal in mind.
Not just keeping the game between them and the No. 15 team in the country close, but to upset the nationally-ranked powerhouse program.
The Gauchos showed that swagger on the court, racing out to an 18-point first-half lead. But in the end the Bruins were too much and handed the Gauchos a 68-57 loss at the Thunderdome.
“When you play with confidence, when you play that hard and you play defense, you give yourself a chance,” UCSB coach Bonnie Henrickson said.
“Now we have to learn and grow how to answer runs. We didn’t answer their late run.”
With the loss, Santa Barbara falls to 5-2 overall while UCLA improves to 8-1, with its only loss being at No. 1 South Carolina.
After the game, UCLA coach Cori Close, a UCSB alumni both as a player and an assistant coach in the women’s basketball program, said it was “very emotional” in her second contest back at the Thunderdome since leaving in 2004.
“I wouldn’t be here without not only the women’s basketball program, but all these familiar faces. Our old athletic director is here, Jack Rivas, who was our academic advisor, Chancellor Yang and the list goes on,” Close said.
“This is my dream job, and no one gets to those places alone, and this has been such a formidable place. It’s very humbling, and I am extremely grateful and I know that I would not be where I am today without the people of this community.”
The game started about as well as it could for the home team.
UCLA scored the first points of the game at the 8:29 mark of the first period, but would go without a basket over the next 8:09, as the Gauchos scored 17 unanswered to take a 15-point lead.
The Bruins would get a bucket with 20 seconds left in the frame, but a 3-point rainbow from junior point guard Alyssa Marin as the clock expired would give UCSB a 20-4 lead after one.
“I was afraid that was going to be us on the other side of that score,” Henrickson said with a laugh.
“But I am proud of the confidence we came out with. We defended, we got good shots and we did what we needed.”
Marin was the key force for the Gauchos on offense, scoring 11 points on a perfect 4-for-4 clip in the first period alone, knocking down two from deep as well.
For the game, the junior scored her team-high 17 points on an efficient 6-of-9 from the field and 4-of-7 from deep. She added four assists as well.
“My teammates, I have to give a shout out to them for getting me open and just driving and kicking the ball to me. It was really good,” Marin said.
“It was an amazing experience playing against UCLA, and I felt like we were really attacking them and attacking the ball, so I got to get some open shots.”
Marin also credited the team’s defensive pressure, which showed as the Gauchos forced UCLA into 17 turnovers — one shy of a season-high.
“Before you play this game, that feeling of ‘oh my goodness’ sets in.” Marin said. “But playing them like we would play any other team and just keeping that confidence level was important.”
“This experience has been everything, so it’s really going to help for the future of the season.”
UCSB would take its biggest lead of the night to start the second quarter when Marin knocked down a tough leaning jumper from the elbow to give her team a 22-4 lead.
UCLA finally responded, however, going on a 9-0 run and putting the pressure defensively, Close said.
“We have great leadership and we never panicked,” Close said. “We weren’t playing very well and I thought we needed to really do a much better job of letting the defense be the anchor, and we found a way to get the job done.”
Despite the run, UCSB kept pace and maintained an 8-point lead into the break.
Out of halftime, however, the Bruins’ defensive pressure became much more restrictive.
Over the final 20 minutes, UCLA held UCSB to just 42 percent shooting from the field and forced 13 of the Gauchos’ 19 total turnovers.
“The hardest thing was their physicality level,” Marin said. “They just kept hitting us harder and harder each quarter and that was kind of when we started slipping a little bit.
“For the future, we really want to learn from this and just try to compete with that physicality and just keep working hard. At the end of the day, that’s something that we can control.”
Midway through the third, UCLA took its first lead of the contest, 39-36. Eventually, the Bruins extended that lead to five at 44-39 with just under two minutes left.
But a strong push by the Gauchos cut the lead down to one. A buzzer-beater 3 from UCLA before the end of the third, however, would give the Bruins a 48-44 lead heading into the final period.
UCSB cut the lead down to two one more time at 51-49, but would struggle to find many baskets the rest of the way as UCLA would use a 12-3 run over a five-minute stretch to really ice the game.
Ila Lane scored 13 points for the Gauchos to go along with six blocks, while freshman Jessica Grant was pure electricity off the bench for UCSB, scoring 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting from deep.
Guard Anya Choice had a team-high six assists for the Gauchos.
UCLA was led by Charisma Osborne, who finished with 19 points.
UCSB’s next contest is at California Baptist on Saturday, Dec. 10 at 1 p.m.