{"id":158556,"date":"2026-02-01T00:31:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T00:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158556\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T00:31:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T00:31:23","slug":"ucla-women-look-to-refine-game-against-no-8-iowa-on-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158556\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA women look to refine game against No. 8 Iowa on Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Heading into one of the most critical games of the season, UCLA<\/a> women\u2019s basketball coach Cori Close said she believes the adversity her team overcame during an 80-67 win at Illinois<\/a> on Wednesday will help the mindset going into Sunday\u2019s home contest against No. 8 Iowa.<\/p>\n

UCLA (20-1 overall, 10-0 Big Ten) is on a 14-game winning streak and moved up a spot to No. 2 in this week\u2019s polls behind unbeaten Connecticut. All-American center Lauren Betts had 23 points and nine rebounds despite early foul trouble versus the Illini, and the Bruins won despite shooting one for 10 from three-point range.<\/p>\n

\u201cIllinois was a tight game and I actually thought there was some great value in that we were challenged,\u201d Close said after practice Friday at Mo Ostin Basketball Center. \u201cThey cut it to five in the second half and we had to practice poise and make some adjustments to how they were playing. They\u2019re the first team that\u2019s played us one-on-one in the post. We had to make some adjustments in our defense in the second half. <\/p>\n

\u201cI could\u2019ve coached better. I could\u2019ve made adjustments in the first half to disrupt their rhythm. We got challenged, we had to respond with less margin for error and had to do it quick in a pressurized, hostile environment. That\u2019ll be a lesson that bodes well for us as we go down the stretch to possibly a more contested game against Iowa.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior guard Kiki Rice reflected on the Illinois game: \u201cThey had a great crowd. Everything\u2019s not going to be easy. Illinois has a really good young core and is going to be really good in coming years. They made it difficult for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iowa (18-3, 9-1) lost 81-69 to unranked USC<\/a> on Thursday night to fall into a second-place tie with No. 9 Michigan in the conference. The Hawkeyes will be the ninth ranked opponent UCLA has faced and the highest since its lone defeat to Texas in Las Vegas on Nov. 26. Iowa had won eight straight before being upset by the Trojans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the trajectory, the coachable spirit and the desire to put winning first from this group,\u201d Close said. \u201cIllinois was probably our worst execution of a scouting report in awhile. We did not play with the same urgency, focus and connectivity that we had been leading up to that. Every game teaches us something different and that one had some painful lessons. We did not take care of things under our control and we did not have the same level of urgency to execute the game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was the coach\u2019s message to her team?<\/p>\n

\u201cGet better,\u201d Close said matter-of-factly. \u201cThat\u2019s the answer to every question \u2014 find ways to improve, to use every day\u2019s experiences to make improvements in your game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guard Charlisse Leger-Walker, a graduate student who played four years at Washington State and hails from New Zealand, anticipated a difficult game at Illinois.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we expect from most teams \u2014 they\u2019re going to take a good swing at us,\u201d she said. \u201cThey threw some different things at us that we haven\u2019t necessarily seen this season. We can learn from that. It helps prepare us for what other teams may try to do to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Close expects a competitive game Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth teams have arguably been playing the most consistent basketball in the conference,\u201d she said. \u201cThey stumbled last night against USC, but I have so much respect for the job Jan [Jensen] has done with that group. They\u2019re disciplined, they know their identity and they play to their strengths really well. <\/p>\n

\u201cI shouldn\u2019t have to motivate too much for Sunday\u2019s game. It\u2019s pretty much the top two teams in the conference having the chance to battle it out on our home court. It\u2019s two very different styles of play. Who can assert their will and play the game the way they want to play it? This is another opportunity to develop more consistency and get closer to where we want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the teams\u2019 last meeting is any indication, Sunday\u2019s game at Pauley Pavilion could be decided on the final possession. The third-ranked Bruins edged unranked Iowa, 67-65, in Iowa City last February behind 22 points and 12 rebounds from Betts and 12 points from Rice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIowa is a really good team,\u201d Leger-Walker added. \u201cEveryone in the Big Ten is really strong. It\u2019s on us to be prepared and to make sure we\u2019re locked in to what we want to do in terms of scouting and our own strategy. They\u2019re going to come hard and we have to be ready for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iowa freshman Journey Houston scored a career-high 16 points and Ava Heiden added 13 against USC. The Hawkeyes have won 17 of their last 20 regular-season Big Ten games.<\/p>\n

Close cited Rice and Leger-Walker as examples of players who have valued loyalty.<\/p>\n

\u201cKiki and Charlisse are both absolutely committed to work ethic and growing and it is a joy to coach them,\u201d Close said. \u201cKiki stayed four years and paid her dues but so did Charlisse. She stayed four years and then happened to have a COVID year and an injury situation she responded to. Two kids who were committed and loyal and stayed the course, and I want to honor them because less and less people are doing that. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is that we are not going to have as many four-year players as we used to. I can\u2019t build only from the freshmen out anymore. I don\u2019t like that. I wouldn\u2019t prefer that, but my job is to lead in the landscape I\u2019ve been given. Instant gratification is something you\u2019re always trying to battle. The way we\u2019ve chosen to attack entitlement or instant gratification is to practice gratitude and to serve selflessly. I want players to maximize their opportunities, but there\u2019s also a lot of value in having to work long and hard for what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heading into one of the most critical games of the season, UCLA women\u2019s basketball coach Cori Close said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[77305,817,77304,6387,423,9105,34270,48,52,51,47,50,49,18158,1417,77306,776,427,25859,3533,8843],"class_list":["post-158556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-adjustment","tag-close","tag-coming-year","tag-conference","tag-game","tag-illinois","tag-iowa","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-no","tag-point","tag-same-urgency","tag-sunday","tag-team","tag-ucla-woman","tag-usc","tag-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158556","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=158556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}