UCLA women are in NCAA tournament, will play at home Saturday against Hawaii

UCLA has a basketball team taking high expectations into the NCAA tournament. Its 10th-ranked women’s team.

On Monday, hours after a plane pulling a banner calling for men’s basketball Coach Steve Alford’s firing was seen over the campus, UCLA was announced as the No. 3-seeded team in the Bridgeport Regional of the NCAA women’s tournament.

The Bruins (24-8) open the tournament at home Saturday against Big West Conference champion Hawaii (21-10) at 3:30 p.m. South Florida (23-9) and Colorado State (31-1) play in the other opening-round game at UCLA at 6 p.m. The winners meet Monday in a round of 32 game at UCLA, with the victor advancing to a regional semifinal in Bridgeport, Conn., on March 26.

Three-time defending champion Connecticut (32-0) is the top overall seed in the tournament and is No. 1 in the Bridgeport Regional, meaning UCLA could meet the Huskies in that regional’s championship game on March 28.

South Carolina (31-1), Notre Dame (31-1) and Baylor (33-1) were the other No. 1 regional seeds.

UCLA’s team watched the announcement of the tournament’s pairings in the Hall of Fame press room at the J.D. Morgan Center on campus. They jokingly booed when a clip of their recent loss to Oregon State in the Pac-12 Conference tournament championship game was shown on television, and quietly took in an interview with Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma after their seeding was announced.

“I never want it to get old,” UCLA Coach Cori Close said of her team’s selection. “It’s a privilege and I’m very thankful.”

The Bruins thought they might have earned a No. 2 regional seeding, but Close chose to focus on the positive moving forward.

“I think the way that they performed all year — the way they avoided bad losses, got significant wins, the kind of schedule they played — I think they earned that number,” the coach said. “But if you were to ask me, ‘Do you want a number two seed or the right matchups for your team?’ I would choose the right matchups for our team any day of the week.”

To Close, just playing at home was a nice enough perk.

“It’s a huge advantage, especially for a quarter [system] school,” Close said. “It’s the middle of final exams. I think for our players to be able to stay in their routine, meet with their professors … it’s tremendous.”

UCLA players and coaches said they didn’t know much about Hawaii, which won the Big West Conference tournament after finishing in second place during the regular season. Jordin Canada, who leads the Bruins with a 16.1-point average, said she was a former teammate of Briana Harris, a junior guard for Hawaii who had 13 points and eight rebounds in the Big West title game.

However, UCLA does know about Connecticut, a program that has won 69 consecutive games and is guided by a coach, Auriemma, who could pass John Wooden with an 11th college basketball national championship should his team win again this year. The Huskies are led by Breanna Stewart, the likely first pick in the next WNBA draft.

The Bruins are part of Connecticut’s streak, having lost to the Huskies, 86-50, last season.

“I’m not really focused on UConn right now,” Canada said. “I know some of my teammates probably thought about last year and the way things went, but then again, we were inexperienced last year. This year, we’re just focused on one game at a time.”

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