WOMENS BASKETBALL

UCLA 75, Oregon 49

BY BETH HARRIS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES - Angela Dugalic scored a career-high 17 points against her former team, Lauren Betts had 13 points and 11 rebounds, and No. 2 UCLA clamped down defensively to rout Oregon 75-49.

Kiki Rice added 11 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds for the Bruins (13-0, 2-0 Pac-12), whose offensive struggles were overcome by shutting down the Ducks.

Already the league’s top rebounding team, the Bruins dominated the boards 46-27, including a 21-1 edge on the offensive glass. Dugalic had nine rebounds.

Phillipina Kyei had 14 points and seven rebounds to lead the Ducks (9-6, 0-2). Grace VanSlooten, who averages a team-leading 16.1 points, was held to nine.

Betts outbattled Kyei, giving up an inch to the 6-foot-8 Ducks center. They tangled in the paint, with Betts tipping the ball away or altering Kyei’s shots. On offense, Betts ducked under or around Kyei until the UCLA center picked up three of her four fouls in the third.

UCLA used a 16-0 run over the end of the first quarter and start of the second for a 22-4 lead. The Ducks missed their first six shots and committed two turnovers in the game’s first eight minutes. They missed 7 of 8 3-pointers over the first two quarters.

The Bruins missed their first nine 3-point attempts. But Rice hit two and Londynn Jones had another in the second quarter when UCLA opened up a 22-point lead.

The Ducks scored seven in a row in the third, including three from the free throw line, but UCLA answered with an 8-0 spurt to end the period leading 61-34. Kyei had seven when Betts was on the bench most of the time.

Oregon outscored the Bruins 15-14 in the fourth, when the Bruins owned their largest lead of 30 points after Lina Sontag’s 3-pointer.

BIG PICTURE

Oregon: The Ducks are 1-3 on their current five-game trip that began Dec. 19 in Utah. While they’re eager to get home, the rest of the month poses plenty of challenges. They’ll travel to No. 8 Stanford before hosting No. 15 Utah and No. 5 Colorado.

UCLA: The Bruins play six of their seven games in January at home, with their only travel being a trip across town to visit to No. 9 USC in the teams’ second matchup. While they have a chance to put some distance between the competition, the Bruins will also host three of the four teams directly behind them in the Pac-12 standings.

January 5, 2024