{"id":164941,"date":"2026-02-05T09:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T09:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/164941\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T09:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T09:23:10","slug":"kiki-rice-and-gabriela-jaquez-help-no-2-ucla-rout-rutgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/164941\/","title":{"rendered":"Kiki Rice and Gabriela Jaquez help No. 2 UCLA rout Rutgers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Headlined by first and third quarter dominance, No. 2 UCLA<\/a> women\u2019s basketball picked up a 86-46 win<\/a> over Rutgers (9-14, 1-11) at Pauley Pavilion on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Kiki Rice led the Bruins (22-1, 12-0 Big Ten) with 17 points and seven rebounds, while Gabriela Jaquez<\/a> got things started, scoring 10 of her 14 points in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

Rutgers, playing without its two leading scorers in Nene Ndiaye and Imani Lester, committed 18 turnovers that the Bruins converted into 25 points. <\/p>\n

Coach Cori Close said Jaquez and Rice, alongside Charlisse Leger-Walker \u2014 who was second on the team behind Jaquez with 25 minutes played \u2014 established the energy she wanted from her team.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe does a great job of that. Her one-on-one defense and defense in general is really great,\u201d Jaquez said of Leger-Walker. \u201cShe\u2019s just a really great defender. She really sets a tone on getting those [loose balls].\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Bruins\u2019 first possession of the game, Rice stepped back from the three-point line, shooting an air ball. But she followed that miss with the Bruins\u2019 next three scores from the field, all three coming off the break.<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA center Lauren Betts shoots while being guarded by Rutgers\u2019 Kaylah Ivey Wednesday at Pauley Pavilion.<\/p>\n

(Caroline Brehman \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

And while the Scarlet Knights got on the scoreboard first with a three-pointer, they missed five layups and committed five turnovers, with the Bruins taking advantage for 11 points in the quarter. The Scarlet Knights\u2019 six first-quarter points were the fewest scored by a Bruins opponent in the first period this season.<\/p>\n

UCLA jumped to a 26-6 lead over the Scarlet Knights by the end of the first quarter, but it couldn\u2019t extend that lead in the second, scoring just 14 points to Rutgers\u2019 13.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next piece of discipline that we need to grab is learning how to be more consistent,\u201d Close said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t proven against teams that are not in our caliber, from a talent perspective, that we can put 40 minutes of disciplined basketball together and play to our standards on a consistent basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bruins also struggled to hold onto the ball in the second quarter, committing seven turnovers \u2014 although the Scarlet Knights scored just three points off the miscues. And while UCLA went three for eight on three pointers in the first period, it couldn\u2019t bury one in the second off five attempts.<\/p>\n

UCLA again struggled to separate itself from Rutgers during the fourth quarter, getting outscored 19-18.<\/p>\n

Close rotated players throughout the night, with eight Bruins playing more than 19 minutes apiece. The Bruins\u2019 coach said she was working around players with different loads and trying to balance minutes out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe mixed up the rotations a little bit,\u201d Rice said. \u201cIt\u2019s a long year, so we want to protect our bodies and everything. But I do think it\u2019s always a great opportunity to play with different people, to work on actions together and how we play with each other. We need to be able to play with different lineups. There are going to be times where that\u2019s going to happen throughout the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

With nine points, Sienna Betts had half of the Bruins points in the fourth quarter, bringing her game total to 11\u2014 marking the first time she\u2019s matched her sister, Lauren, in scoring at UCLA. Rice said Sienna has looked more comfortable during the past few games.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Lauren played just 13:38 minutes, her briefest appearance this season and fewest minutes in a game since 2023.<\/p>\n

UCLA has six conference games remaining before the Big Ten tournament, with their next game at No. 8 Michigan at noon PST Sunday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Headlined by first and third quarter dominance, No. 2 UCLA women\u2019s basketball picked up a 86-46 win over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8932,9017,17976,42838,423,42841,48,52,51,47,50,49,79658,18158,1417,77397,79656,34124,79657,25859,8843],"class_list":["post-164941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bruins","tag-first-period","tag-first-quarter","tag-gabriela-jaquez","tag-game","tag-kiki-rice","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-nene-ndiaye","tag-no","tag-point","tag-rutgers","tag-scarlet-knights","tag-turnover","tag-ucla-rout-rutgers","tag-ucla-woman","tag-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164941","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=164941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}