UCLA Makes It to Monday

When Stanford Coach Tara VanDerveer arrived here Friday she spotted UCLA guard Nikki Blue in the hotel lobby. After some small talk, VanDerveer left Blue with this parting shot: “We’ll see you on Monday night.”

VanDerveer has a second career in prophecy.

The third-seeded Bruins (19-10) overcame a season-low 19-point first half and a nine-point deficit Sunday at HP Pavilion to stun second-seeded and 11th-ranked Arizona State, 60-59, and reach the Pacific 10 Conference tournament championship game for the first time.

Lisa Willis scored 20 of her game-high 27 points in the second half, and Noelle Quinn had 16 points, 10 rebounds and the game-winning free throws with 29 seconds to play.

It was also the first time in 10 tries this season the Bruins won a game when trailing at the half.

“We’re gonna enjoy this for about four hours, then we’re gonna get our focus back on and see what we can do [tonight],” said UCLA Coach Kathy Olivier, who got her 200th career victory. “This team deserves to be [in the final]. They really stayed together as a group and it paid off.”

Kristen Kovesdy had 18 points for Arizona State (24-6), which saw a 10-game winning streak end.

“UCLA did a great job, especially in the second half,” Coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “It’s funny; we had a dip in January when we played not to lose. And it really came back today. We just didn’t maintain our aggressiveness.”

In the other semifinal, top-seeded and 13th-ranked Stanford (23-6) hammered game but undermanned USC, 73-44.

The Cardinal, which got 15 points and eight rebounds from Brooke Smith and 14 points from Krista Rappahahn, have been in every Pac-10 tournament title game. It lost the first one in 2002, and has won the last three.

USC, seeded fifth, lost to Stanford in the semifinals for the second straight year.

“I thought our team did a great job defensively,” VanDerveer said. “Our ability to play everyone will help us tomorrow. We should be rested and ready to go.”

USC (18-11), which had 14 points from Eshaya Murphy, shot 25.7% and was outrebounded, 59-43.

“There are going to be nights when the other team plays awesome and nothing you shoot goes in. All you have to do is forget about it and move on. And that’s what we’re going to do,” said Trojan Coach Mark Trakh, whose team was held to a season low in points and lost to Stanford for the seventh consecutive time.

But if USC’s loss was expected, UCLA’s win was not.

In the first half the Sun Devils defended tightly in the frontcourt, trying to make UCLA expend as much energy as possible.

It had an early effect. UCLA built a 13-6 lead in the first six minutes, then scored only six more points the rest of the half. The Bruins were scoreless the final 5:38, while Arizona State scored 10 consecutive points to take a 28-19 halftime lead.

Instead of resignation, the Bruins came out with determination.

“We did not want to go home tonight,” said Willis. “And we knew we were better than we showed.”

UCLA opened the second half with a 13-3 run to go in front, 32-31, and drained the Sun Devils of their aggressiveness. The teams would swap the lead 10 times before Quinn made her free throws.

Arizona State still had time to get off a shot, but never did. The Bruins knocked the ball out of bounds under the basket with 2.8 seconds, then pressured forward Emily Westerberg into fumbling away the Sun Devils’ last chance with 1.4 seconds left.

USC never had a chance. The Trojans had only eight scholarship players available because of injuries, and Stanford didn’t let them make it close.

By halftime the Cardinal was ahead, 40-19, having already collected 36 rebounds. In the second half the Cardinal led by as many as 35 points.

“I was confident going into today,” said Meghan Gnekow, the lone USC senior, who had seven points and seven rebounds Sunday in her last conference tournament game. “Unfortunately our shots weren’t falling. Hopefully this is not the end. We’ll move on and look forward to the NCAAs.”