{"id":210199,"date":"2026-03-08T09:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210199\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T09:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:27:14","slug":"ucla-beats-ohio-state-advances-to-big-ten-tournament-title-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210199\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA beats Ohio State, advances to Big Ten tournament title game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

INDIANAPOLIS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The UCLA<\/a> women\u2019s basketball is one game away from adding another milestone during its dominant season.<\/p>\n

For the second consecutive year, No. 1-seed UCLA will compete for the Big Ten tournament championship. Lauren Betts<\/a> nearly nabbed a double-double with 14 points and nine rebounds during the Bruins\u2019 72-62 win<\/a> over No. 5-seed Ohio State during a semifinal on Saturday at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.<\/p>\n

UCLA (30-1, 18-0) will face No. 2-seed Iowa at 11:15 a.m. PDT on Sunday. The game will air on CBS.<\/p>\n

It was UCLA\u2019s 24th consecutive win and kept the Bruins undefeated in conference play.<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA forward Angela Dugalic passes the ball under pressure from Ohio State center Elsa Lemmila during the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament on Saturday in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n

(Michael Conroy \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

UCLA held Ohio State leading scorer Jaloni Cambridge to 12 points, far short of her 23.1 points per game average and her fewest in conference play. Ohio State shot 37% from the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cShutting her down was a big key for us,\u201d said UCLA\u2019s Angela Dugalic, who had 14 points and six rebounds. \u201cThe fact that we were able to stop their best player is good for us, but that\u2019s also credit to her the fact that our whole focus was on Cambridge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohio State\u2019s 62 points were the third-fewest in a game this season. Chance Gray led the Buckeyes with 23 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a ton of people who can guard all-around,\u201d said guard Kiki Rice, who finished with 17 points and eight rebounds. \u201cJust creating havoc, disrupting people\u2019s possessions, and making sure that we\u2019re dictating, not them dictating us, is something that we take pride in and we\u2019ve been focusing on, especially in the postseason.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December, UCLA played one of its closest games of the season at Ohio State<\/a>, fighting for an 82-75 win. The Buckeyes are ranked No. 11 in the Associated Press top 25 poll and are expected to host a first-round NCAA tournament game. While the conference semifinal wasn\u2019t as tight, the Buckeyes still offered UCLA one of its toughest tests in a while.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the Bruins jumped out to a 12-3 lead in the first quarter on three consecutive baskets from Rice. The Buckeyes brought it back within four, but UCLA forced nine first-half turnovers to build a 16-point lead in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey tipped a lot of balls, a lot of passes we usually get through for shots or at least shot opportunities, they were tipping those,\u201d Ohio State head coach Kevin McGuff said. \u201cI think their combination of talent, depth, length really makes them very difficult to play against, that\u2019s why I think they\u2019ve got a chance to make a great run in the NCAA tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Buckeyes (26-7, 13-5) didn\u2019t fade quietly in the fourth quarter as UCLA quarterfinal opponent Washington did. Ohio State stayed in the single digits until the end of the game, while the Bruins\u2019 offense kept distance with 44.4% shooting.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we could have maybe spread out on [three-pointers] a little bit more in the first half, defended the threes a little bit better in the second half,\u201d said UCLA guard Gianna Kneepkens, who scored 13 points. \u201cThey\u2019re a great team, and so I think we did a good job. But again, there\u2019s always stuff to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a dominant team, the Bruins have to nitpick at times to find areas of to improve. One spot where they can focus on is defense, which has lapsed at points while UCLA runs up the score on offense.<\/p>\n

The Bruins\u2019 defensive effort is far from poor, ranking No. 26 nationally with 57.2 points allowed per game, but it\u2019s still behind its sixth-best offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey only got two threes in the second half and limited them to only six attempts,\u201d UCLA coach Cori Close said. \u201cAnd I thought those two things were really good halftime adjustments that were important to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA guard Kiki Rice shoots over Ohio State guard Jaloni Cambridge during the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament on Saturday in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n

(Michael Conroy \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

UCLA tallied 10 steals and two were credited to Kneepkens, who has become an key part of the Bruins\u2019 defensive switches on the wing.<\/p>\n

\u201cLately she\u2019s been really on top of her stuff, so I\u2019m really proud of her,\u201d Betts said. \u201cI think a lot of our defensive deflections come from her. \u2026 All of that pressure that we had started with her. When she makes big plays, I think it\u2019s a really big deal for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saturday was the 16th Quadrant 1 win for the Bruins, and they\u2019ll have an opportunity for another one in a tournament-clinching title game on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to say that we\u2019re comfortable winning, or we\u2019re just used to it, but at the same time because we have this standard, we know what to expect out of ourselves,\u201d Dugalic said. \u201cAs long as we execute, I think we can keep winning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The UCLA women\u2019s basketball is one game away from adding another milestone during its dominant season. For the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96754,8932,60119,96753,423,42841,48,52,51,5814,47,50,49,18158,24288,1417,7556,96755,1092,558,1543],"class_list":["post-210199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-big-ten-tournament-championship","tag-bruins","tag-buckeyes","tag-dominant-season","tag-game","tag-kiki-rice","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lead","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-no","tag-ohio-state","tag-point","tag-rebound","tag-tournament-title-game","tag-ucla","tag-washington","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210199","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=210199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}