Olivier Wins 100th Game as UCLA Regains Touch

Kathy Olivier got her 100th win, Maylana Martin had 22 points and the UCLA women’s basketball team got healthy against a short-handed San Diego State team, 82-61, Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion.

Coming off a dreadful 82-64 loss to Louisiana Tech and before that an 88-77 loss to Tennessee, the UCLA coach was asked how her milestone victory felt.

“I wish it had happened two games ago,” she said.

UCLA (3-2) led, 5-0, 40 seconds into the game, fattened it to 39-26 at the break and just missed having a 30-point lead midway through the second half, when Takiyah Jackson scored on a nifty drive down the paint for a 63-34 lead with 9:54 left.

San Diego State (1-6) had only eight players in uniform, the result of two injuries and two players leaving the team when the season began. It was the Aztecs’ fourth straight loss.

Martin also had a career-high 19 rebounds in her best outing of the season. The 6-foot-3 senior center was dominant inside, and against two competent Aztec low post players, Mary Apiafi and Atim Otti, who together had 37 points.

Martin was 10 for 13 from the line and had three blocks and three steals in 28 minutes.

UCLA played an aggressive, game-long trapping defense and worked all week on starting fast and dictating tempo. The Bruins forced 29 turnovers and had nine steals.

“I’m happy with the W, but we can get a lot better in a lot of areas,” Olivier said.

“One of our goals was to keep the turnovers under 15, and we didn’t do it [UCLA had 20]. We had a very good intensity level--we worked on our press all week with the idea of trapping more.”

Free throws were also emphasized.

“We worked on getting to the line a lot more [UCLA was 15 of 23], picking up the tempo, getting in our lanes and looking for easy baskets,” forward Marie Philman said.