UCLA Wastes Terrific Effort by Martin

Maylana Martin, on a night when UCLA desperately needed a victory, brought arguably her best game.

But unhappily for the Bruins’ women’s basketball team Thursday night, her teammates--all of them--were ordinary at best and Oregon moved further ahead of UCLA in the Pacific 10 Conference with a relatively easy 89-72 victory at McArthur Court.

Oregon (20-6, 11-3), buoyed by a crowd of 7,465, scored the first seven points of the second half in a game tied, 36-36, at halftime.

Martin, the 6-foot-3 All-American senior, had 21 points at halftime and finished with 39 points, nine rebounds, three assists, a blocked shot and two steals. It was the most points scored by a woman at McArthur Court, a Martin career high and the fifth-highest one-game total by a Bruin.

It was a game that seemed winnable for UCLA early. The Bruins (15-8, 9-4) had a 30-20 lead with six minutes left in the first half and were keeping the crowd relatively quiet. Then, as Coach Kathy Olivier said afterward, her team vanished.

“We were doing exactly what we wanted when we had a nine-point lead, then we disappeared,” Olivier said.

Oregon finished the half with a 13-4 run, the Bruins never challenged in the second half, and were left with that sinking feeling afterward.

A disconsolate, barefoot Martin sat on a hallway training table afterward and talked about the Bruins’ bleak chances of overtaking Oregon.

“Now, there’s nothing we can do except win the rest of our games and hope someone beats Oregon for us,” she said, adding UCLA can catch Stanford (10-3), which visits UCLA next weekend.

Oregon registered a season sweep of the Bruins. The Ducks won, 67-58, at UCLA in January.

While Martin was making 17 of 22 shots from the floor, no other Bruin made more than three baskets.

Martin’s 6-4 running mate, Janae Hubbard, was shut down by Oregon’s 6-5 Jenny Mowe, who scored only 10 points but held Hubbard to four.

“My job tonight was to take Janae out of her inside game and I feel I did that,” Mowe said.

“At halftime, Coach [Jody Runge] told us we weren’t intense in the first half and that we had to come out and really put it on ‘em.”

With 9:35 left, UCLA was down by 12, but they endured a 3 1/2-minute stretch when it seemed every muffed pass, every missed shot, every bobbled rebound bounced Oregon’s way.

Nicole Kaczmarski (11 points) made a three-point basket with 6:06 left, bringing UCLA to within 13 points, but the Ducks easily held the Bruins at bay. In fact, they began walking the ball up the court to kill the clock.