Lauren Betts’ brief absence provides valuable test for UCLA in March Madness

SPOKANE, Wash. — If there’s one thing UCLA’s Elite Eight victory showed, it’s that the Bruins are about more than just Lauren Betts.

The 6-foot-7 All America center is the centerpiece of UCLA’s offense and a menace for their opponents. But she’s not the only asset for the overall top-seeded Bruins, who will face UConn and Paige Bueckers on Friday as the women’s NCAA Tournament heads to Tampa, Florida, for the Final Four.

Against LSU in the regional final, Betts picked up two early fouls. She went to the bench with less than a minute left in the opening quarter, then sat the entire second quarter. She didn’t return until after halftime.

The Bruins leaned on Timea Gardiner, while guards Kiki Rice and Gabriela Jaquez kept their teammates focused. UCLA wound up outscoring the Tigers 22-12 in the quarter as Betts looked on.

“I don’t have to be in the game at all times. I have a team full of players who are just amazing and talented in their own right, and they put in the work,” Betts said. “So I knew that as I was sitting there, I’m going to be the best teammate that I can and cheer them on, but they have my back at the end of the day.”

Even when Betts was in the game, she was often derailed by the Tigers’ defense, which double-teamed her at times. She still finished with 17 points, seven rebounds and six blocks in three quarters of play. Betts averages 20 points and 9.6 rebounds for the Bruins.

“I think that we just did what we usually do. One person goes down, another person steps up,” said Gardiner, who finished with 15 points — all on 3-pointers. “As Lauren said, we have a deep team and everyone is ready when their number’s called, and so we truly did that and we found each other, too, and we just played off each other and we just had fun.”

The Bruins have lost just twice this season — both times to nemesis Southern California — before winning the Big Ten title and then sweeping through the opening two rounds of the tournament.

They pulled away in the second half of a 76-62 victory over Mississippi in the Sweet 16, Betts leading the way with an efficient 31 points on 15-of-16 shooting to go along with 10 rebounds.

That set up the victory over LSU, which sent the Bruins to the NCAA Final Four for the first time, although UCLA won a national title in 1978 in the pre-NCAA era of women’s basketball.

Jaquez had 18 points and eight rebounds against the Tigers and Gardiner finished with 15 points.

Gardiner, a transfer from Oregon State, has averaged 7.7 points and 3.5 assists, while Jaquez has averaged 9.9 points and 5.2 rebounds. Rice is second on the team to Betts with an average of 12.9 points.

UConn, the Bruins’ opponent on Friday, got 31 points from Bueckers in a 78-64 Elite Eight victory on Monday night over USC, for the Huskies’ record 24th trip — a record among both men’s and women’s teams — to the national semifinals. Sarah Strong added 22 points and 17 rebounds.

UCLA coach Cori Close said Betts’ absence for an entire quarter was good for the rest of the team’s confidence that they can play effectively without their star center, and it also may have solved another puzzle, too.

“The other part of that equation, not only did Lauren go out, but we have been really struggling in second quarters,” Close said. “So we’ve been having great first quarters and great third quarters, and we were talking to our team and at the quarter break, we said, `OK, here we go right here. What are we going to do different to come out and execute? We have more than enough and what does it look like to really execute right now?’ And it wasn’t even just about without Lauren. It was like, we want to play better all the way through this stretch.”