Pac-10 Title Is First for Bruins

They’re thought to be the future of Pacific 10 Conference women’s basketball, this band of UCLA players.

But Saturday, before 4,804 at Pauley Pavilion, the Bruins played as if they can’t wait that long.

They got what they wanted, an impressive 85-77 victory against a quality Arizona team and a piece of the conference championship--sharing it with Oregon, which won at California Saturday. It was UCLA’s first title since the conference began playing women’s basketball in 1986-87.

Shaking off their inconsistency of the last two weeks, the Bruins, 23-7 overall, 15-3 in conference, finished the regular season with their second consecutive victory--their fifth in six games--and today await word if their NCAA tournament journey begins, as expected, in Pauley.

Coach Kathy Olivier’s players took turns climbing a ladder to cut down strands of net, but Olivier declined to take a snip for herself.

“They [players] did it, not me,” she said.

“Most of them have been here three years and been through a lot. It’s their time.”

Arizona (17-10, 12-6) had won three in a row and was 11-2 since a 1-3 start to the conference season.

It was an important victory in other ways for the Bruins. It gave them a 2-0 sweep of Arizona, which became the tiebreaker for the tournament’s automatic qualifier. Since UCLA and Oregon split, and each of them split with second-place Stanford, UCLA got the bid. Oregon was 1-1 against Arizona.

Arizona and everyone else got a look at what 6-foot-4 junior Janae Hubbard brings to the postseason, if she can avoid early foul trouble, which she did Saturday.

She had 22 rebounds, tying the Pauley Pavilion record set in 1978 by UCLA’s Denise Curry. She had 13 defensive boards and nine on offense in 33 minutes.

“It was a combination of not getting in foul trouble and a different level of desire--I just really wanted the ball today,” she said.

For most of the season, Hubbard has been tagged early in the first half with a second foul, and Olivier has pulled her each time.

Olivier seemed the least surprised Saturday.

“When Janae stays out of foul trouble, she puts up big numbers,” she said.

Point guard Erica Gomez, who had seven assists to go along with three of UCLA’s 12 steals, called it a defensive turnaround.

“I think that’s the most active we’ve been defensively in a long time,” she said.

Certainly more than they were at Washington a week ago, when the Bruins were beaten, 96-85, by an inferior team. Or at Oregon Feb. 4 when they were intimidated by a big crowd and clobbered by the Ducks, 106-79.

Saturday, everything seemed to be in sync except free-throw shooting. UCLA was 19 for 30 from the line, Arizona 15 for 19.

But the running game, ignited by the dozen steals and 16 Wildcat turnovers, was productive, with UCLA scoring on breakaways and Hubbard seemingly sweeping up every miss.

UCLA led at the half, 43-36, then Pac-10 player of the year Maylana Martin went to work, scoring eight quick points in the second half as the Bruins took a 56-45 lead. Martin finished with 20 points and 13 rebounds.