NCAA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : UCLA Rallies on Road to Defeat Texas, 82-81

Should UCLA make the Final Four of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament at the Sports Arena, nobody will be able to say the Bruins had the easiest route in.

Playing Texas on the Longhorns’ home floor in a second-round Midwest Regional game Sunday, UCLA rallied from seven points behind in the final six minutes for an 82-81 victory.

The fifth-seeded Bruins (21-9) move on to the Midwest Regional semifinals in Boulder, Colo., Thursday. UCLA will play eighth-seeded Southwest Missouri State, which defeated Iowa, the No. 1-seeded team in the regional, 61-60, in overtime Sunday.

Rehema Stephens’ 16-foot jump shot with 39 seconds remaining gave UCLA the lead for the first time in the final nine minutes. Texas (21-10) failed to score on two possessions after Stephens’ shot.

“They’re not the Texas everyone here remembers, with half our Olympic team on the floor,” UCLA Coach Billie Moore said of the Longhorns, the fourth-seeded team in the Midwest. “But this is still a very special place and a very difficult place to come in and play.

“So this was special for our program, a moment our players will remember.”

Not only did the Bruins have to deal with a noisy crowd of 4,990 in the Erwin Center--including Texas Gov. Ann Richards, a regular at Lady Longhorn games--but they had to work off the kinks of some hard time on the road.

Mechanical problems on its flight out of Los Angeles Friday forced the UCLA traveling party to miss a connection in Dallas that afternoon. So a six-hour trip became a 24-hour odyssey, with the Bruins spending Friday night in a Dallas motel and dragging into Austin Saturday.

UCLA fell behind by as many as 14 points during the first half. Bruin point guard Nicole Anderson picked up her third foul 9:52 into the game and wound up playing only eight minutes of the first half. Stephens made only four of 13 shots during the first 20 minutes.

UCLA was able to hang in because of guard DeDe Mosman, who made four three-point shots during the final 11 minutes before intermission.

Trailing by five at halftime, UCLA took the lead with 14:55 remaining. The game went back and forth from there until Texas went on an 11-0 run to lead by 75-68 with 6:42 to play.

That’s when Stephens, who has been bothered by a sore foot, found her rhythm. The Bruins put together a 14-6 run, with Stephens scoring eight points and Natalie Williams six.

After Stephens’ jumper with 39 seconds remaining, Texas’ Fey Meeks threw the ball away. But UCLA, holding the lead and the ball with 26 seconds left, failed to capitalize on the turnover when Williams lost the ball against Texas’ press.

So the Longhorns had another chance with 10 seconds left. Texas’ Johnna Pointer tried to get the ball inside to 6-foot-4 center Cinietra Henderson (28 points, 13 rebounds). But Pointer’s pass was slapped away by Williams, and a desperation 19-footer by Pointer banged off the rim.

“We wanted to get the ball in Cinietra’s hands,” Texas Coach Jody Conradt said of the final sequence, “because she’s been our go-to person all year. Unfortunately, we dilly-dallied too long.”

Williams led the Bruins with 24 points and 11 rebounds. Stephens added 20 points and 10 rebounds, her winning basket overshadowing nine-for-26 shooting.

“UCLA is a very interesting team,” Conradt said. “I don’t know if that’s their best (effort) or not. But they have so many offensive weapons: Williams; Stephens, she’s so unpredictable, it’s hard to know how to defense her; Mosman, the way she was hitting in this game, she’s hard to stop.

“They could stay in (the tournament) awhile.”