Cedar Park, Texas \u2013 The Bruins wrapped their preseason with an 81-64 loss to the Texas Longhorns on Sunday at the H-E-B Center.<\/p>\n
UCLA and Texas will match up in the regular season as the second game of the 2026 Players Era Women\u2019s Showcase on Dec. 20.<\/p>\n
Junior Elina Aarnisalo<\/a> led the Bruins with 13 points (4-7 FG) and eight boards; senior Donovyn Hunter<\/a> added 11 points to join her point guard in double figures. <\/p>\n Nine Bruins scored in the loss; sophomore Sienna Betts<\/a> fouled out with eight points and five rebounds.<\/p>\n UCLA won the battle of the boards, outrebounding Texas 36-31 in the defeat. The Bruins had 14 offensive rebounds to the Longhorns\u2019 11. UCLA struggled in the turnover category; Texas scored 20 points off UCLA\u2019s 18 turnovers.<\/p>\n Aarnisalo scored the first point of the game with a free throw make, one of two at the line. The Longhorns ripped off six-straight points before KK Bransford<\/a> muscled her way to the rim for a right-handed layup. Betts was third on the board with a fadeaway jump shot. Aarnisalo connected with Bransford in transition to cut the lead to two. <\/p>\n Sophomore Bonnie Deas<\/a> added a triple after the media timeout, keeping it a one-possession affair. Senior Donovyn Hunter<\/a> played a three-on-two advantage to perfection, finding Timea Gardiner<\/a> in the corner for her first triple of the afternoon. Aarnisalo added two with a jump shot in the paint. The Bruins trailed by six at the end of the first. <\/p>\n Betts opened the second quarter with a reverse layup over her Longhorn defender. Hunter pushed the pace off a steal in the post from Somto Okafor<\/a>; the senior guard fought through the body of her defender for an and-one layup. Aarnisalo found the bottom of the net from the right wing for her first three. Deas added a pair of free throws out of the media timeout to cut Texas\u2019 lead to single digits. Betts brought the ball up out of a baseline inbound and backed her defender into the paint; she unleashed her signature fadeaway for another bucket. Senior Addy Brown<\/a> got on the board with a left-wing 3-pointer. Hunter then used Brown for a top-of-the-arc screen to get to a midrange jumper. <\/p>\n UCLA took a six-point deficit into the intermission, trailing 38-32 at the half.<\/p>\n Aarnisalo attacked the basket on UCLA\u2019s first offensive possession of the second half and drew the shooting foul; the Finnish point guard got one of her two free throws to drop. Texas then ripped off a 10-0 run, forcing a UCLA timeout. The Bruins trailed by 15 at the media break with 6:52 to play in the third. The Longhorns got another layup before Aarnisalo stopped the bleeding with a bucket at the rim herself. Okafor added another from an Aarnisalo assist. Brown dropped in a bucket before the second media timeout of the quarter.<\/p>\n Okafor got downhill again and earned a trip to the charity stripe, knocking down both. Hunter added another layup for her seventh point of the game. Bransford ripped through from the corner and was met by a Texas defender on her way to the rim; she converted the layup and the and-one free throw.<\/p>\n UCLA closed the third quarter down 15, 61-46.<\/p>\n Betts worked down low and got to her left hand for a scoop shot in the lane. Deas earned another trip to the line and went 1-for-2. Hunter then stole the ball on Texas\u2019 next possession and took it the length of the floor for a layup. <\/p>\n Betts collected her third block of the game in the final frame; her rebound led to a fast break attack by Hunter, who was fouled on her way to the rim. The senior from Portland, Ore., made both of her free throws and was the first Bruin in double figures. Freshman Lina Jerkovi\u0107<\/a> took her first shot from the top of the arc and drained it for three; the Bruins trailed by 16 after the make.\u00a0<\/p>\n Aarnisalo added a jumper and a pair of free throws before the final buzzer; Gardiner also collected two free throws to her total in the final three minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cedar Park, Texas \u2013 The Bruins wrapped their preseason with an 81-64 loss to the Texas Longhorns on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-476878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}