second half

SACRAMENTO — When the confetti dropped after the final buzzer, the UCLA women’s basketball team was dancing.

Lauren Betts and Charlisse Leger-Walker looked at each other as Tate McRae’s “Just Keep Watching” played, then Gabriela Jaquez, from across the court, locked eyes and raced to join them in time.

It was time, once again, for the Bruins to celebrate by performing their dance routine. This time, No. 1 UCLA also answered a key question during its Final Four-clinching 70-58 win over No. 3 Duke.

Yes, the Bruins (35-1), barely challenged all season and always dancing and smiling, could actually deal with adversity after all.

UCLA earned its second straight Final Four berth despite trailing at halftime for the second time all season and coming from behind to win while down in the second half for the first time.

They will face the winner of Monday’s game between No. 1 Texas and No. 2 Michigan.

“That was definitely adversity,” said Gianna Kneepkens, who scored seven points. “We regrouped, and the way we were talking to each other gives me so much confidence.”

UCLA trailed Duke 39-31 at the half after missing all four three-point attempts and committing 12 turnovers.

UCLA center Lauren Betts drives to the basket over Duke forward Toby Fournier in the first half of the Bruins’ win in the Elite Eight of the women’s NCAA tournament Sunday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

“We really didn’t execute our game plan very well,” UCLA coach Cori Close said of the first half. “We didn’t control rebounds. We weren’t the aggressors in creating catches. We didn’t go strong to the rim and execute our stuff.”

But they turned on the aggression early in the third quarter, taking deeper shots and forcing three jump-balls and four turnovers as the Bruins rallied from a deficit in the second half for the first time all season. UCLA outscored Duke 20-8 in the third quarter.

“We were really reactive in that first half and let the game come to us,” said Leger-Walker, who finished with five points and six assists. “We let them dictate what was going on out there. It’s not how we’ve played in the season, when we’ve been up and feeling good. So, you know, we could feel that coming into halftime, and we all kind of took a breath, reset, and a lot of that was on the defensive side.”

Betts was also activated late, with 15 of her 23 points and eight of her 10 rebounds coming in the second half while she matched a season high five blocks.

“I was pretty mad,” Betts said of her emotions at halftime. “I just didn’t like how that first half happened. I know that I could have been a lot more aggressive. I think going into a game like this, sometimes you just take yourself out of your head and you realize, oh, this is the Elite Eight and my season is on the line. So I’ve got to wake up a little bit. Going into the locker room, I was just pretty certain that I wanted to win this game.”

Angela Dugalic shot four of eight with four rebounds and two steals in the second half and was the catalyst for many big moments, including a buzzer-beating floater to end the third quarter and a lead-extending layup and free throw off an offensive rebound to create separation in the fourth. She finished with 15 points off the bench.

Dugalic and the other veterans led a halftime conversation before Close came into the locker room.

“When Cori came in, she was super steady, and I think that gave us a sense of calm,” Dugalic said. “We still were pretty neutral. We understood that the first half wasn’t a good representation of how we want to play basketball. But Cori came in and what she said right now is, like, ‘How do we stick back to our values and stay neutral, focus on next-play speed?’”

Duke forward Delaney Thomas, left, tries to draw a foul against UCLA forward Angela Dugalic during the first half Sunday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Duke (27-9) scored 18 points off the Bruins’ 18 turnovers, tied for the most UCLA has committed all season. Twelve of them came in the first half. But UCLA turned it around in the second half with 18 points off 13 Duke turnovers.

The Blue Devils entered the game limiting opponents to 26.8% from three-point range, ranking 15th nationally, and aggressively challenged the Bruins’ offense. UCLA responded by becoming one dimensional, solely trying to get the ball to Betts in the post.

But Gabriela Jaquez, who finished with nine points and five rebounds, hit a three-pointer early in the third quarter to get UCLA back within five, and Duke missed six consecutive shots while the Bruins narrowed the gap. Toby Fournier (10 points) also committed her third foul early in the quarter, forcing the Blue Devils’ center off the floor.

Both offenses stalled for a period in the third quarter, but consecutive Duke turnovers led to a Leger-Walker fast-break layup and a Kneepkens three-pointer for UCLA’s first lead since the opening seconds of the game.

Duke didn’t score for 5:40 during the third quarter until Taina Mair (team-high 21 points) made a free throw with 32 seconds remaining. The eight Blue Devils’ points were tied for the fewest they’ve scored in a quarter this season.

“You can only learn from moments like this, which is a really positive thing,” said Leger-Walker, with one piece of the NCAA tournament net tied to her Final Four hat. “Definitely not something we want to have as a pattern, though.”

The Bruins held the ball with the clock running down, and Leger-Walker dribbled it to around the top of the three-point line and stopped. Her teammates surrounded her and the group huddled around each other as time expired.

“I just said, ‘I love you guys,’” Betts said of the moment. “That was it. I said, ‘I love you guys.’”

They’ll dance on down to Phoenix next, looking not to avenge the Final Four defeat to UConn a year ago, but ready to prove they have grown to be a championship team.

“Now we really know what it takes to build a rally too,” Rice said.

UCLA center Lauren Betts holds up a piece of the net after the Bruins’ win over Duke in the Elite Eight of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

On a day when No. 1 seeds dominated, UCLA wasn’t the exception.

The top-seeded Bruins led wire-to-wire, beating No. 8-seed Oklahoma State 87-68 in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Monday night at Pauley Pavilion to advance to the Sweet 16.

They will face No. 4-seed Minnesota on Friday in Sacramento.

While UCLA started much better than it did in its opening-round game, there were still elements to nitpick. The Bruins were outscored 21-18 in the third quarter, Oklahoma State won the offensive rebounding battle and outside of Lauren Betts — who scored a career-high 35 points while shooting 15 of 19 — the offense fell flat at times in the second half.

But with arguably the best post player in the country, the Bruins overcame all of that.

UCLA (33-1) jumped out to an 11-2 lead while the Cowgirls (24-10) went the final 4:26 without scoring and shot 0 for 8 from the field during that span. The Bruins turned that into a 25-point lead and were up 46-26 at halftime.

Unlike the first-round victory over California Baptist on Saturday, UCLA came out cold to start the third quarter. The Bruins missed six shots in a row while Oklahoma State went on a 9-0 run to narrow the deficit to 13.

UCLA guard Kiki Rice, left, fights for the ball with Oklahoma State forward Achol Akot during the Bruins’ win Monday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

The Cowgirls shot 51.4% from the field in the second half to stay within striking distance while UCLA’s offense went mostly cold. But Oklahoma State’s leading scorer, Achol Akot (23 points), had four fouls by the start of the fourth quarter and had to spend much of the quarter on the bench.

Betts scored 11 consecutive UCLA points in the final four minutes of the third to put the Bruins ahead by 19. In addition, she finished the game with nine rebounds and five assists.

Gianna Kneepkens (15 points) made a couple of key shots in the fourth quarter to help jolt the Bruins’ shooting, but it was still Betts’ dominant showing that kept UCLA well ahead. Of UCLA’s 87 points, 50 came in the paint.

UCLA’s next opponent, the Golden Gophers (24-8), advanced on a buzzer-beater against No. 5-seed Mississippi on Sunday. The Bruins beat Minnesota 76-58 on the road during conference play earlier this season.

PHILADELPHIA — On the night reigning NCAA champion Florida was eliminated by Iowa, UCLA tried to follow the Hawkeyes’ lead against Connecticut, the team that had worn the crown the previous two years.

And for the second straight game they were hoping to win without leading scorer Tyler Bilodeau, whose sprained knee still hadn’t healed enough for coach Mick Cronin to risk putting him on the floor.

Seventh-seeded UCLA battled, managing to take a brief lead in the second half. But in the end, No. 2 Connecticut’s size and power were too much for the Bruins to overcome in a 73-57 loss in the second round of the NCAA tournament Sunday.

Four players scored in double figures for UCLA. Xavier Booker finished with 13 points, Eric Dailey Jr. had 12 points and Donovan Dent and Skyy Clark each finished with 11. But the Bruins couldn’t contain Connecticut forward Alex Karaban, who erupted for 27 points, as the Huskies advanced to the Sweet 16 to play No. 3 Michigan State in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

The Bruins got off to a good start, building an 18-12 lead before the Huskies caught fire, hitting seven straight shots at one point to seize a 38-33 halftime lead.

Connecticut’s Tarris Reed Jr., center, tries to work past (from left) UCLA’s Trent Perry, Donovan Dent and Eric Dailey Jr. during the first half Sunday.

(Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

UCLA (24-12) started the second half on a 6-0 run, regaining a 39-38 edge on a corner jumper by Clark.

Connecticut (31-5) didn’t wait long to retake control, going on a 14-0 run over the next five minutes, with Karaban scoring 10 points over that span.

UCLA answered with an 8-0 run, with Dailey’s three-point play cutting Connecticut’s lead to 56-52 and reigniting the Bruins’ hope of an upset. Connecticut, however, responded with a decisive 9-0 run, taking a 67-54 lead with 4:24 left.

UCLA struggled with its shooting most of the night, going 19 for 49 (39%) in comparison to Connecticut’s 23 for 49 (47%). Both teams had the same number of free-throw attempts (21), but the Bruins made just 67% of their shots and the Huskies made 90%.

SACRAMENTO — Senior Ayla Teegardin of Palisades held her head high on Saturday morning. A 51-37 loss to Yuba City Faith Christian in the state Division IV girls basketball final at Golden 1 Center couldn’t lessen the inspiring backstory of how she and her Dolphin teammates had already won by making it to the final despite all the trial and tribulations of the Palisades Fire that destroyed a community in January 2025.

Teegardin lost her home, spent three months in a hotel and battled to regain her teenage life.

“I struggled with a lot of anxiety coming into games,” she recalled.

Basketball and teammates kept her focused. This season has been another challenging time with practices at night and at middle schools until the high school gym was finally re-opened at the end of January.

“That traumatic situation has brought everyone closer,” first-year coach Lebre Merritt said.

On Saturday, Palisades (16-14) fought Faith Christian (34-1) to almost a draw at halftime, trailing 29-26. But the Dolphins scored only 11 points in the second half and had no answer for Long Beach State-bound Lauren Harris, who came in as the nation’s career three-point scoring leader while averaging 31.2 points this season. She finished with 26 points, 16 rebounds, five assists, three blocks and two steals. She made a half-court shot at the end of the first quarter.

Elly Tierney of Palisades did her best on offense with 15 points and six rebounds. Teegardin finished with three points and six rebounds. Only three players scored the entire game for Faith Christian.

The Dolphins outrebounded Faith Christian 43-33 but made only 15 of 63 shots.

CHICAGO — This was hardly a masterpiece of Big Ten basketball, what with the barrage of bricks and busted possessions. Nor was it the sort of night to convince you of UCLA’s chances as a surefire conference contender.

But amid the mess of its 72-59 win over 14th-seeded Rutgers on Thursday night, UCLA showed the sort of mettle it may need to keep its season kicking this March.

It started with Donovan Dent, whose masterful month continued with his first career triple-double — and the first triple-double in Big Ten tournament history. The senior tallied 12 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists. He and Tyler Bilodeau, who added a game-high 21 points, were the rare bright spots on offense for the Bruins.

Otherwise, UCLA struggled to find any sort of rhythm. It shot just 38% from the floor, worse than it had in any win this season. And still, the Bruins were in control for most of the game after pulling away early in the second half.

None of that will fly against No. 3 seed Michigan State on Friday at 6 p.m. PDT, which beat UCLA by 23 points the last time they met.

But until Thursday it’d been quite some time since UCLA actually managed to win away from home. Not since Jan. 29 had it won outside of L.A., and only once this season had it won outside of the Pacific time zone.

For a while, it didn’t seem like UCLA intended to win Thursday, either. Even as Rutgers gave it every chance to pull away.

The Bruins did shut down Rutgers’ Tariq Francis, who was fresh off a 29-point performance in a first-round win over Minnesota. Francis didn’t score until the nine-minute mark in the second half. He finished with six points on two-of-11 shooting.

The two teams spent most of the first half trading wasted possessions and taking turns with their respective shooting slumps. Four minutes scoreless for Rutgers. Three scoreless for UCLA. Four scoreless for Rutgers. Then three scoreless for UCLA. Back and forth they went in their futility.

The Bruins had plenty of chances to build a lead early. While Rutgers struggled to find rhythm on offense, settling mostly for contested shots inside the arc, UCLA got its share of open shots all around the floor. It just wasn’t able to hit many of them. Both teams shot a meager 31% before halftime.

Those shots fell more frequently in the second half, as UCLA pushed its lead to 15. The Bruins still struggled to put the Knights away, until Dent took matters into his own hands late, pushing UCLA to victory.

CHICAGO — The eventual end of the USC men’s basketball season came the same way that it fizzled out during the past month, with yet another second-half collapse that featured the added pain of overtime.

Tuesday’s 83-79 overtime loss to Washington in the Big Ten tournament, the Trojans’ eighth straight defeat, brought to a close what USC coach Eric Musselman called the toughest stretch of his coaching career. It included not only USC’s longest losing streak in a decade, but a pair of 19-point losses to UCLA and the dismissal of leading scorer Chad Baker-Mazara from the team in the past 10 days alone.

The Trojans led the Huskies by 13 in the second half and had chances to win at the end of regulation and overtime, only to miss all three potential game-winning or game-tying shots and go 2-for-5 from the free-throw line in overtime. For a team that was once in NCAA tournament consideration before stumbling, that failure to finish was a persistent flaw.

USC guard Alijah Arenas talks with coach Eric Musselman during the Trojans’ loss to the Huskies in the Big Ten tournament on Wednesday in Chicago.

(Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

“That’s been the story of our last eight games,” Musselman said. “I think we’ve led at halftime four of our last eight games, and as a group, we haven’t figured out how to close games, the last 20 minutes with a lead. It’s a disappointing last eight games of the season. I thought up until that point we played good basketball.”

With the Trojans likely to decline any postseason invitation, Musselman said, he was headed to the team hotel Tuesday night to get back to work filling out next season’s recruiting class, starting with more freshmen before the transfer portal officially opens next month.

That group already includes two top-30 recruits in the Ratliff twins, Adonis and Darius, but if USC learned anything from the way this season ended, all too similar to the way last season ended, it’s that whatever depth and talent Musselman has assembled in his two years at USC hasn’t been enough, whether that’s freshmen or transfers.

“We want a blend of both,” Musselman said. “It’s early in our tenure, and we’ve got to figure out a way to get better than what we’ve done the last two years.”

Tuesday, the Trojans had no shortage of chances to fend off the end.

They had a double-digit lead with 13 minutes to play. They had the ball at the end of regulation with the score tied. They had a chance to win it in overtime and were gifted a last-chance shot to tie it.

They missed all three pivotal shots — the first two by Kam Woods, the last a 3-pointer by Jordan Marsh — to see a game they once led comfortably slip away again and again.

“On the last one, I feel like I missed Ezra [Ausar] on that cut,” said Woods, a grad transfer who joined the team in midseason. “Coach trusted me with the ball in my hands, and I feel like I let him down.”

Woods finished with 24 points while Jacob Cofie scored 14, Marsh 13 and Ausar and Ryan Cornish 10 each for 13th-seeded USC (18-14) as the 12th-seeded Huskies (16-16) beat the Trojans for the third time this season.

Freshman Alijah Arenas, who led the Trojans in scoring in both games without Baker-Mazara, was held to six points on 3-for-10 shooting and sat out the final six minutes of regulation and all but eight seconds of overtime. Musselman said that was his decision, as was the virtual absence of senior Terrance Williams, who played only one minute.

That left USC with what was essentially a six-player rotation to conclude a season that began without the injured Arenas and ended without Rodney Rice and Amarion Dickerson, both hurt, as well as the departed Baker-Mazara — all of which factored into Musselman’s position on any postseason plans.

“I haven’t had in-depth conversations with the administration yet about that, but I would assume we’re not going to play, just based on the number of bodies and how we played the last eight games,” Musselman said.

It was not all that long ago that USC was thinking about the NCAA tournament. Winners of the Maui Invitational, USC was 18-6 and above .500 in the Big Ten standings after a February 8 win at Penn State, solidly in a workable position on the NCAA tournament bubble.

But as the injuries mounted and momentum waned, second-half struggles just like the Trojans’ on Tuesday became an increasingly fatal flaw as they slumped to their longest losing streak in a decade. The loss to Washington compounded the misery of a second straight frustrating season, in familiar fashion.

“As a team, we faced a lot of adversity,” Cofie said. “I felt like we did a good job sticking with it and trying to play for each other. We had to deal with a lot of injuries. I felt like that played a huge deal in it. We still fought. We tried our best.”