SPOKANE, Wash. — LSU coach Kim Mulkey has seen each manner groups can attempt to comprise dominant publish gamers with measurement.
In any case, she had the posh of 6-foot-8 Brittney Griner for 4 years at Baylor.
However in Sunday’s Elite Eight matchup towards UCLA, Mulkey may have the problem of attempting to get her workforce to comprise UCLA 6-foot-7 middle Lauren Betts, whose ability set has shades of Griner’s school days.
All the things UCLA does runs by Betts.
She controls the paint, is wildly environment friendly at ending across the rim, a premier shot blocker and robust passer.
Even scarier? Betts is enjoying a few of her finest basketball this month.
Betts scored 31 factors on 15-for-16 taking pictures and had 10 rebounds and three blocks in Friday’s Candy 16 win towards Ole Miss.
It was her second consecutive double-double after she had 30 factors and 14 rebounds within the win towards Richmond within the Spherical of 32.
“She is so talented. Just watching her from high school until today, it’s amazing how good she is,” Mulkey stated of Betts. “Certainly her height is an advantage and we’re not going to grow that tall overnight. But we have to battle and do the best we can. But she’s not all they have. Certainly everything they do goes through her, as it should, but they’re talented at a lot of positions.”
Betts is healthier now than she was a 12 months in the past.
That’s clear in the best way she scores, occasions her rebounds, reads opposing protection and anchors the Bruins’ inside protection.
LSU’s Aneesah Morrow and Sa’Myah Smith may have their work minimize out for them.
However all the UCLA workforce, which misplaced to LSU in final 12 months’s Candy 16, has made a serious leap this season to be the nation’s high workforce.
The work began in the summertime.
Not solely did gamers give attention to refining their particular person video games, however as a workforce, the Bruins labored on particular conditions, together with closing quarters and out-of-timeout situations.
“[I] really have tried to empower them more [to] create chaotic situations in practice, create adverse scenarios,” coach Cori Shut stated. “I’m the least favorite coach from pretty much November to through, and I think it had to be my role. I needed to push them out of that comfort zone and create the struggle and adversity that was going to make them learn to be empowered to make their own decisions. So those are two things that I felt like I needed to respond to from last year.”
That “chaos” has paid dividends.
UCLA ended South Carolina’s prolonged successful streak in November and earned this system’s first nationwide No. 1 rating.
The Bruins went 27-2 within the common season and gained the Massive Ten match title.
They’re the No. 1 seed on this 12 months’s NCAA Event and are contending for not solely UCLA’s first Closing 4 look however a possible nationwide title.
When the bracket was launched, although, some UCLA gamers have been excited to see that LSU was of their regional.
“Some of us wanted to play LSU just because we knew that we lost to them and we want to win,” junior Gabriela Jaquez stated. “We know we’re capable of beating them. … We’re a different team than we were. After seeing some film from our game last year, and I’m just like, ‘Yeah, I’m a way better defender than that.’ And all of us are saying the same thing.”
