Angela Dugalic and Lauren Betts power No. 2 UCLA to victory over Oregon
On a night when UCLA‘s offense struggled, the second-ranked Bruins were dominant on defense.
Angela Dugalic scored a career-high 17 points against her former team and Lauren Betts had 13 points and 11 rebounds in a 75-49 rout of Oregon on Friday night.
Kiki Rice added 11 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds with no turnovers for the Bruins (13-0, 2-0 Pac-12), who took 75 shots to 43 for Oregon.
“When you shoot as poorly as we did tonight, you should be thankful,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “That’s why you build your backbone on defense and rebounding because sometimes these nights come.”
UCLA proves it’s one of the nation’s top teams in a game that emphasizes the rise in popularity of women’s basketball in Southern California.
Already the league’s top rebounding team, the Bruins dominated the boards 46-27, including a 21-1 edge on the offensive glass. Dugalic had nine rebounds.
“Our goal for each quarter was to keep them under 12 and the whole game to keep them under 50 which we did by one,” said Dugalic, who helped the Ducks to a Sweet 16 berth in the 2020-21 season.
“We preach about defense every single practice every single day. Today was a good representation of how we can play defense. We know what we have to do to stop teams defensively and we have to commit to that,” she said.
Phillipina Kyei had 14 points and seven rebounds to lead the Ducks (9-6, 0-2). Grace VanSlooten, who averages a team-leading 16.1 points, was held to nine.
The Bruins scored 28 points off the Ducks’ 20 turnovers and had a 40-18 edge in the paint.
Dugalic insisted she felt no extra motivation against the Ducks.
“I just came in with a different mindset,” she said. “I’m trying to find ways to look for different people.”
Betts outbattled Kyei, giving up an inch to the 6-foot-8 Ducks center. They tangled in the paint, with Betts tipping the ball away or altering Kyei’s shots. On offense, Betts ducked under or around Kyei until the UCLA center picked up three of her four fouls in the third.
It was the first game in which Betts wasn’t the tallest player on the floor.
“She still had 13 points on a very subpar night,” Close said.
UCLA used a 16-0 run over the end of the first quarter and start of the second for a 22-4 lead. The Ducks missed their first six shots and committed two turnovers in the game’s first eight minutes. They missed seven of eight three-pointers over the first two quarters.
Lauren Betts struggled through her first season at Stanford. She says UCLA’s mental health support helped her become a key leader for the Bruins.
The Bruins missed their first nine three-point attempts. But Rice hit two and Londynn Jones had another in the second quarter when UCLA opened up a 22-point lead.
The Ducks scored seven in a row in the third, including three from the free throw line, but UCLA answered with an 8-0 spurt to end the period leading 61-34. Kyei had seven when Betts was on the bench most of the time.
Oregon outscored the Bruins 15-14 in the fourth, when the Bruins owned their largest lead of 30 points after Lina Sontag’s three-pointer.
Big picture
Oregon: The Ducks are 1-3 on their current five-game trip that began Dec. 19 in Utah. While they’re eager to get home, the rest of the month poses plenty of challenges. They’ll travel to No. 8 Stanford before hosting No. 15 Utah and No. 5 Colorado.
UCLA: The Bruins play six of their seven games in January at home, with their only travel being a trip across town to visit to No. 9 USC in the teams’ second matchup. While they have a chance to put some distance between the competition, the Bruins will also host three of the four teams directly behind them in the Pac-12 standings.
Up next for UCLA: vs. Oregon State at Pauley Pavilion on Sunday to close out a four-game homestand.
Go beyond the scoreboard
Get the latest on L.A.'s teams in the daily Sports Report newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
