LOS ANGELES — “Passion Player of the Week” is a recognition with a lot of weight to it around the UCLA women’s basketball team.
One player is selected for their efforts on passion plays – impactful moments that don’t necessarily appear on the stat sheet – and is bestowed a blue boxing-style championship belt.
“It gives us another thing to work for, another thing to compete for,” sophomore Gabriela Jaquez said. “We make it a lot of fun because we watch some videos before every game of the previous game and getting the belt is just fun and funny. Something to get excited for.”
The No. 12 Bruins will put their passion to the test, especially on defense, on Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion in a rematch with No. 18 Utah, which is the seventh-ranked team in the country when it comes to scoring margin.
The Utes (19-7 overall, 9-5 in Pac-12 play) are outscoring opponents by an average of 20.9 points this season while averaging 81.3 points per game.
There are seven ways UCLA (20-5, 9-5) measures passion plays and four of them are defensive: deflections, charges, out-of-area rebounds and assist box-outs. The Bruins have other ways of categorizing defense, too. A kill, for example, is when they get three stops in a row.
“We have live recordings of our load and how intense we’re playing,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “We’ve been sort of shifting and a lot of that has to do with how hard we’re playing on defense. We also chart defensive rebound percentage. We want to get 75% of the defensive misses of the other team.”
Junior Alissa Pili leads Utah with 21.6 points per game, although UCLA was able to hold her to 16 in a 94-81 overtime loss in January. The Bruins are focused on her, but they also seek to limit the Utes’ 3-point shooting after they made 13 of 28 (46.4%) from long range in their last meeting.
“We have to do a better job of forcing them to take hard twos,” Close said. “It’s been very well documented that they are really only hunting for layups and threes. Technically, they’ve taken 16 (mid-range shots) only in the entire Pac-12 season.”
The Bruins’ recent loss to Oregon State was a harsh lesson in sticking to a defensive game plan as well as limiting opponents behind the arc. The Beavers made 57.9% of their 3-point attempts, including the game-winning shot at the buzzer.
“That was one of my top 10, in my 31-year career, most painful losses,” Close said. “We just lost track of some personnel things. We weren’t decisive enough, we didn’t communicate enough, we had 21 miscues.”
The team reviewed all 21 of those miscues on film in preparation for Utah, engraining some important reminders in players’ minds.
“If we’re guarding a shooter be aware of that and be aware that they’re trying to get their shot off,” Jaquez said. “Or if someone’s driving to the basket, we don’t need to help. Scouting report defense. And again, just the importance of limiting threes.”
Thursday’s game could also be a pivotal moment in the Pac-12 standings. Stanford sits on top with a 12-2 record, but Oregon State, USC and Colorado are right behind the Cardinal at 10-4.
UCLA and Utah are tied at 9-5 with four games remaining until the Pac-12 tournament. The Pac-12’s top seven teams are also nationally ranked.
Close said she wants to be present-minded and has even deleted the ESPN app from her phone to avoid any potential distractions.
“The sort of distractions that come from living in past regret or fear of the future or being outcome-driven,” Close said. “Whichever teams can stay most present-focused over the next four games, I think they’re going to be the ones that end up on top.”
No. 12 UCLA vs. No. 18 Utah
When: Thursday, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Pauley Pavilion
TV: ESPN