{"id":137716,"date":"2026-01-17T12:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T12:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/137716\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T12:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T12:47:08","slug":"ahead-of-maryland-game-ucla-women-on-guard-against-complacency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/137716\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahead of Maryland game, UCLA women on guard against complacency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After two wins on the road<\/a>, the UCLA<\/a> women\u2019s basketball team is happy to be back at Pauley Pavilion for Big Ten games Sunday and Wednesday against No. 12 Maryland and Purdue.<\/p>\n

UCLA coach Cori Close<\/a> put her squad through a rigorous workout Friday afternoon after not being completely satisfied with recent practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the games … it was that in practice we didn\u2019t come out with the intensity that we needed to,\u201d Close said. \u201cThere\u2019s a standard and if you don\u2019t meet it, practice needs to be very uncomfortable. My biggest job is to hold us to that standard day-in and day-out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third-ranked Bruins (16-1, 6-0) are anxious to build on their 10-game winning streak and take on a Maryland team that has momentum on its side after their 62-55 victory at USC<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaryland plays their butts off, they rebound, they turn people over and they get to the free-throw line,\u201d Close said of the Terrapins, who were projected to finish second to UCLA in the Big Ten. \u201cI\u2019ve been coaching against Brenda Frese since I was at Florida State in the ACC and she has sustained success. She\u2019s a heck of a coach. The hardest thing to do is to get really talented players to play hard and selflessly a high percentage of the time, and she does that every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior guard Kiki Rice<\/a> reflected on the Bruins\u2019 last two wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach game is an opportunity to get better to learn about ourselves,\u201d Rice said. \u201cNebraska is a really, really good offensive team … our defense has taken a step up. Minnesota plays really hard and is very well coached. Both games were challenges in different ways, but we learned a lot of really good lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior guard Gabriela Jaquez<\/a> said the Bruins are not underestimating Maryland, another ranked opponent in a schedule full of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really aggressive, they have a lot of great players and they\u2019re going to come out ready to play,\u201d Jaquez said. \u201cThey had a good game against SC and we have to come out hard and take care of the ball and rebound. It\u2019ll be a fun game and I\u2019m glad to be back in Pauley.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA coach Cori Close instructs her players during a win over Richmond in the NCAA tournament in March.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

UCLA has as much talent as any team in the country, but Close is trying to guard against complacency.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing good happens in our comfort zone,\u201d Close said. \u201cIf you\u2019re comfortable, then you\u2019re probably losing ground. In these last two games we had some really crappy possessions, but we still scored because we had more talent. That can be a deception and my job is to expose that and get us focused on the process, chase excellence and fall in love with what it takes to become great. Outcomes, wins and losses, records and rankings are distractions. The process is where the good work happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Close praised freshmen Lena Bilic<\/a> and Sienna Betts<\/a> for their commitment: \u201cI\u2019m thrilled with them. They\u2019re learning what it takes at this level. If they stick to choosing their commitments over their feelings they\u2019ll be rewarded and will be some of the greatest players to play here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if playing a Big Ten schedule provides an advantage, Close said she is proud to be a member and believes it is the premier conference in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat separates the Big Ten is our depth,\u201d Close said. \u201cThe SEC has a lot of teams in the top 16, but top to bottom it\u2019s hard to argue with the amount of Quad 1 wins \u2014 we have the most in the country. Thirteen schools from the Big Ten are projected to be in the NCAA tournament. This isn\u2019t me pounding my chest for the Big Ten, but the numbers don\u2019t lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Jaquez: \u201cI love playing in the Big Ten for that reason. Everyone\u2019s very competitive and playing top 25 teams is great. It\u2019s going to prepare you for tournament time. We accept that challenge. We know we\u2019re going to get everyone\u2019s best game and that\u2019ll only help us get better and grow. We focus on the day to day. You can\u2019t fast forward to the end, you\u2019ve got to get through these games first, do all the little things and the championship will be a byproduct of what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After two wins on the road, the UCLA women\u2019s basketball team is happy to be back at Pauley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48966,48031,817,69951,7363,11199,28469,48,52,51,47,50,49,1741,69950,39708,5968,69953,69952,25859,1543],"class_list":["post-137716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-basketball-team","tag-big-ten","tag-close","tag-complacency","tag-country","tag-great-player","tag-guard","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lot","tag-maryland-game","tag-pauley-pavilion","tag-process","tag-recent-practice","tag-third-ranked-bruins","tag-ucla-woman","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}