No. 1-seeded UCLA women’s basketball (35-1, 18-0 Big Ten) will face No. 1-seeded Texas (35-3, 13-3 SEC) in the Final Four in Phoenix on Friday. The Bruins look to avenge a 76-65 loss to the Longhorns on Nov. 26, the former’s only loss of the season.
UCLA is entering the game off a 70-58 comeback victory over No. 3-seeded Duke and rides a 29-game win streak, the longest in program history. A trip to the NCAA championship game, which would be the program’s first, is on the line for coach Cori Close’s squad.
Texas took down No. 2-seeded Michigan handily in a 77-41 victory to reach Friday’s semifinal. The squad has outscored opponents by 142 points through the first four rounds of the tournament. Coach Vic Schaefer is looking to lead the Longhorns to their first championship appearance since their title win in 1986.
Here is a breakdown of the upcoming matchup.
Personnel:
Coach: Vic Schaefer
Bigs/Forwards: F Madison Booker, C Kyla Oldacre, F Breya Cunningham
Guards: G Jordan Lee, G Rori Harmon, G Justice Carlton, G Aaliyah Crump
Best Player: F Madison Booker
X-Factor: G Jordan Lee
Stat Profile:
Points per game: 85
Field goal percentage: 50.2%
Points allowed per game: 55.9
Field goal percentage allowed: 37.9%
Frontcourt:
The Longhorns have a lot of talent in the frontcourt, led by 6-foot-1 forward Madison Booker. Booker, despite her size, is one of the top forwards in the country. She averages 19.3 points and 6.7 rebounds per game, both of which are team-high marks.
And Booker has come out strong in the NCAA tournament.
She scored 40 points against No. 8-seeded Oregon on 14-for-21 shooting from the field in the Round of 32. She has averaged 22.5 points per game in the tournament and has recorded eight double-doubles this season.
The First Team All-American has scored less than ten points in just two games this season. Shooting at a 52.4% clip, Booker is a consistently lethal force for Texas.
Booker is joined down low by 6-foot-6 center Kyla Oldacre, who contributes 10.4 points and 6.2 rebounds per game off the bench. She is the most efficient player on the Longhorn squad with a 62.3% clip from the field. In the Elite Eight matchup against Michigan, Oldacre recorded 12 points and 11 rebounds across just 24 minutes of play for her sixth double-double of the year.
The Mason, Ohio, local also leads Texas in blocks, recording 44 this season. If the Bruins are put in a position where they need to foul, though, Oldacre is a solid target, as she shoots 66.9% from the charity stripe and has shot 13-for-24 from the line in the tournament.
The final key piece for the Longhorns’ frontcourt is 6-foot-4 forward Breya Cunningham. The Arizona transfer averages 7.9 points on a 59.4% clip from the field – the second highest on the squad – and 5.6 rebounds per game.
Cunningham is another good option for late-game fouling, with just a 50.9% free throw percentage.
Texas’ frontcourt is strong, but UCLA has pieces that can counter.
Six-foot-seven senior center Lauren Betts, who joins Booker on the First Team All-American squad, leads the Bruins in points and rebounds, averaging 17.2 and 8.6 per game, respectively. She was inefficient in the last matchup between the squads, scoring just eight points, but has posted just two performances since then where she has scored single digits.
Betts was crucial in the squad’s most recent game against Duke, scoring 23 points on 9-for-14 shooting, higher than the 57.9% clip she averages from the field. Her impact carries through on defense as well, made evident by her team-high 71 blocks this season.
Six-foot-four graduate student forward Angela Dugalić joins Betts down low. The Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year contributes 9.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game on 23.5 minutes per contest. Dugalić shoots the ball at a 32.6% clip from beyond the arc, which could allow her to stretch the floor against a Texas squad that is dominant down low.
In the Nov. 26 faceoff between the squads, Booker outscored Betts and Dugalić combined. Betts’ improved performance will be key if the Bruins want to advance.
Backcourt
The strength of the Texas squad is not limited to the frontcourt, as its backcourt has proven itself to be just as impactful.
The second-leading scorer for the Longhorns is guard Jordan Lee, who is averaging 13.3 points per game on a 42.4% clip from the field. She has the most made deep shots on the squad, netting 71 on the season.
Schaefer’s squad does not rely heavily on 3-pointers, though, nailing just 162 on the season, much lower than the Bruins’ 260.
But the Longhorn guards make their presence known in other ways.
Rori Harmon, who averages 8.4 points per game, has recorded 241 assists and only 63 turnovers this season, giving her the third-highest assist-to-turnover ratio in the country.
Although she is not much of a scoring threat, she cannot be counted out, especially against the Bruins. Harmon scored a season-high 26 points the last time Texas faced UCLA, knocking down 9 of her 15 shots from the field.
Her ability to find the open player has proved vital in the last three games for the Longhorns, where she dished out six, seven and 13 assists, respectively. Harmon is also a defensive weapon, recording 105 of Texas’ 450 total steals this season.
The final starter for the Longhorns is Justice Carlton, who averages 8.5 points and four rebounds per game, the highest rebounding mark for any guard on the squad. Carlton posts a 52.9% success rate from the field and has recorded 39 steals.
The Bruins boast one of the top guard classes in the country, with all four graduating starters seen as likely first-round draft selections.
Graduate students Gianna Kneepkens and Charlisse Leger-Walker, along with seniors Gabriela Jaquez and Kiki Rice all shoot above 35% from the 3-point line, with Kneepkens’ 42.9% clip leading the pack.
Rice averages 15.2 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, the second-highest marks on the squad. Leger-Walker and Rice both join Harmon in the national rankings for assist-to-turnover ratio, placing sixth and eighth, respectively.
The Bruin guards led the way in scoring the last time the squads faced each other. Kneepkens and Rice recorded 17 points each, and Leger-Walker contributed an additional 13. Despite this, UCLA, which normally knocks down 7.2 3-pointers per game, only connected four times from behind the arc against Texas.
If the Bruin guards are able to knock down shots, specifically on deep attempts, at a higher percentage than they did in the last matchup, the Bruins could have the edge. UCLA will need to break a trend to do this, though, considering it has shot just 14% and 25%, respectively, from behind the arc across its last two tournament games.
Overall
The Bruins have only been losing at halftime twice this season, including in their most recent game against the Blue Devils on Sunday. The other time UCLA faced a deficit coming out of the break was against Texas, when Close’s squad was down by 20 points.
UCLA tried to climb back into the game, getting within four points of Texas three times in the fourth quarter, but it was not enough to counter the slow start. If the Bruins come out sluggish, the Longhorns could bury them once again in a deficit too large to climb back out of.
But if the Bruins play at the level they can and have throughout the season, Close’s squad has the opportunity to make program history once more.
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