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March Madness: UCLA women’s basketball team is tourney bound

By Mary Coyne

Nov 14, 2016; Waco, TX, USA; UCLA Bruins guard Kennedy Burke (22) and guard Jordin Canada (3) and guard Kari Korver (2) and guard Nicole Kornet (0) and forward Monique Billings (25) huddle after a time out against the Baylor Bears during a game at Ferrell Center. Baylor won 84-70. Mandatory Credit: Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 14, 2016; Waco, TX, USA; UCLA Bruins guard Kennedy Burke (22) and guard Jordin Canada (3) and guard Kari Korver (2) and guard Nicole Kornet (0) and forward Monique Billings (25) huddle after a time out against the Baylor Bears during a game at Ferrell Center. Baylor won 84-70. Mandatory Credit: Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports /
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The UCLA Bruins women’s basketball team is seeded No. 4 in the Bridgeport, CT regional for this year’s March Madness.

The Bruins, with an overall 23-8 record, will play the No.13 seed Boise State Broncos. The Broncos play in the Mountain West conference where they tied for third place. They had a strong showing in their conference tournament beating Fresno State in the title game. That win gave the Broncos the automatic bid into March Madness, their first appearance since 2015.

UCLA, ranked 15th in the nation, earned a No. 4 seed despite falling to Oregon State, 65-53, in the semifinals of the Pac-12 tournament. They had quality wins this season over No. 8 Stanford, No. 9 Washington, and No. 10 Oregon State.

The Bruins will have to be sharp against a hot Bronco team that has won 10 in a row. But they have yet to win a NCAA tournament game in 4 appearances.

As the No. 4 seed, the Bruins are awarded home games for the first two rounds of the tournament. This means the Broncos will be coming to Pauley Pavilion where their opponent enjoys a 27 home-game win streak. This home-court advantage helped the Bruins last year too when they won their first two at home to advance to the Sweet-16 for the first time since 1999.

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But home-court advantage and win streaks do not guarantee a victory. The Bruins will need to produce some offense and be aggressive on defense and under the basket if they want to advance to the second round.

They will rely heavily on their two All-Pac-12 team and Pac-12 All-Defensive team players, junior guard Jordin Canada and senior forward Monique Billings.

Should the Bruins get past the Broncos on Saturday, which I suspect they will, they will play again on Monday night against the winner of No. 5 Texas A&M vs. No.12 Pennsylvania.

If they manage to win that one they have the potential monster matchup with the all-powerful UConn Huskies who are the clear favorite to win it all, and who are enjoying quite a win streak of their own.

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Tip off from Pauley Pavilion for Saturday’s game is at 3:30pm on ESPN2.

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