UCLA Women Left at Start Line

Still quicker, still better.

Make that much better.

You would assume that, offered a rematch with Louisiana Tech, the team that knocked them out of the NCAA tournament last season, the UCLA women’s basketball team would come out fully energized, all weapons firing, in Sunday’s second game of the Honda Elite 4 Holiday Classic at Walt Disney World Resort.

Quite the opposite occurred, leaving Coach Kathy Olivier stumped when asked if her players had just logged the worst first half of basketball in her seven seasons as head coach.

Fourth-ranked Louisiana Tech (5-1) had just blasted the Bruins, 82-64, and they did it so convincingly the loss could cost UCLA (2-2) several places in the rankings.

Olivier couldn’t think of a worse first half.

“It was ugly,” she said.

“The first few possessions, we were OK. Then all of a sudden their hands were everywhere. I can’t explain it. We practice aggressively and we talked about starting off aggressively, and we came out like that . . . “

Her voice tailed off, no elaboration required.

UCLA, ranked fifth, was flattened by a far quicker Lady Techster juggernaut, exactly the way it happened last March at the Sports Arena when Louisiana Tech dumped the Bruins, 88-62, and moved on to the Final Four.

Only this time it was more convincing.

The Bruins were helpless in the backcourt against Louisiana Tech’s whippet-quick guard tandem of Betty Lennox (31 points) and Tamicha Jackson (20), who together had eight of Louisiana Tech’s 13 steals. They also forced most of UCLA’s 22 turnovers, 14 of them in the first half.

Would it have happened with senior starting point Erica Gomez, sidelined by a shoulder injury, in the lineup? No one can say.

At any rate, most of the damage happened early, with the Bruins playing like sleepwalkers trying to stumble through a bad dream. These are not the best of times for the UCLA women’s program. The team is not playing well and the Bruins were shut out during the early NCAA signing period for recruits.

After the first 2:30, when Maylana Martin scored inside to give UCLA a 6-5 lead, it seemed a basketball game was underway.

Then it all quickly came apart, in an unseemly blizzard of turnovers and steals by Lennox and Jackson, who ignited a 44-17 run to the halftime horn.

When the 6-foot-3 Martin was open underneath, UCLA guards Michelle Greco and Nicole Kaczmarski couldn’t find her because of perimeter defense by Lennox and Jackson. When they did pass inside to Martin or Janae Hubbard, they weren’t open and Louisiana Tech steals became instant breakaways.

The game, played before about 2,500 in the 4,700-seat Disney Arena, was basically over in 15 minutes. After Jackson scored on a 12-footer, Lennox sank a three-point shot and Shaka Massey made a jumper, it was 43-19 and UCLA heads were down, their hearts unresponsive.

“We came out and played tentatively and for that I take ultimate responsibility,” Olivier said.

Kaczmarski, the freshman guard who had the ball stolen by Jackson three times at midcourt, talked about preparation.

“Kathy told us about their quickness, I just wasn’t mentally ready for it,” she said.

Martin talked bout tentative basketball.

“As we got tentative offensively, that allowed them to sag inside on us,” she said.

“I have a smart basketball team,” Olivier said.

“We’ll walk away from this having learned something. When we put this schedule together, we thought we could play with these teams. Today, we just weren’t prepared.”

Of missing out on the recruiting battle for Chino prep superstar Diana Taurasi--she recently signed with Connecticut--Olivier spoke of other options.

“It’s not a major issue right now,” she said.

“We’re looking at some players we’ll try to sign in April, plus we have some overseas possibilities.”

While UCLA will surely tumble in the ratings, Connecticut (6-0), in the first game, seemed to strengthen its grip on the No. 1 spot with an 87-74 victory over No. 14 Penn State (4-2).

Led by superb backcourt play by Shea Ralph (17 points, five assists, five steals) and Sue Bird (13 points), UConn also iced it early, running up a 45-30 halftime lead. And Coach Geno Auriemma got 17 points from his 6-2 player-of-the-year candidate, Svetlana Abrosimova.