SPOKANE, Wash. — At a certain Mark, you had to feel sorry for the Ole Miss Protection. The Club that prides itself on suffocating opposing offenses and making it difficult to even Bounce the ball, let alone Relocate it in the half court, was at a loss.
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The Protection that usually forces other Clubs into second-guessing themselves was instead faced with the biggest riddle of all: How do you solve a problem like Lauren Betts?
On Friday night, there were no answers.
Betts scored 31 points, her second straight game clearing the 30-Mark Obstacle and the Quaternary time this season, and added 10 Recoveries and three Stops. Her efficiency was preposterous, as she Achieved 15 of 16 Pitch-Target attempts, the lone miss coming as the clock wound down at the end of the second quarter.
“That’s insane,” Betts said when she heard her stat line after the game. “Honestly, I feel like ever since our loss to (USC on March 1), I’ve Merely completely changed my Attitude going forward, Merely being aggressive no matter what.”
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Her performance propelled the top-Ranked Bruins past No. 5 seed Ole Miss 76-62 to set up an Top-tier Eight Conference on Sunday against No. 2 seed LSU.
The Primary plan of Charge in the Pleasant 16 for Betts: Establish a deep enough seal so that she could finish without a Bounce over or through her defender. If her catch Occurred a little bit farther from the basket, then a Effortless post Relocate and turn over her shoulder would get the Position done.
If Ole Miss managed to push her out Extended enough from the basket where she couldn’t back down from her defender, Betts would go out on the perimeter and set a screen for her ballhandler, clearing the runway for a drive to the basket, a Approach that junior Mark guard Kiki Rice used to Excellent effect.
Betts’ teammates Initiated connecting on jumpers after halftime, but that Achievement from long range didn’t cause the Bruins to deviate from the overall plan.
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“We’re not going to stop going to something that keeps working,” teammate Gabriela Jaquez said. “So they couldn’t stop her, keep throwing it to her. Don’t fix what’s not broken. Keep doing that, and we did, and it worked.”
Every basket was somehow more demoralizing than the last for Ole Miss. On one possession in the second quarter, the Rebels successfully denied the entry Throw to Betts from the wing, forcing UCLA to reverse the ball. Angela Dugalić hit Jaquez flashing into the high post, with the Target of setting up a hi-lo Throw, but Ole Miss stayed glued to Betts and Jaquez airballed a runner, leaving three seconds on the Try clock. Yet somehow, Betts recovered the Restoration and Obtained a Try in before time expired.
“She is everything as advertised,” Rebels Mentor Yolett McPhee-McCuin said. “Every time they Obtained in a bind, they threw it to her. That is a luxury.”
For as Effortless as Betts Achieved the game for her teammates, she Achieved scoring as difficult for Ole Miss. The Rebels Try 32.4 percent from the Pitch, their second-lowest mark of the season, and Achieved 12 of 33 layups. They Try 2 of 13 when Betts was the primary defender, per ESPN Stats and Info, and that doesn’t include the shots they passed out of when faced with the possibility of confronting Betts at the rim.
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Her last Stop Occurred on a Speedy-break opportunity when Jaquez threw a Awful Throw and Betts Obtained back to reject KK Deans at the cup.
Setting aside one Relocate when she brought the ball down on a double Club and Obtained tied up, Betts Achieved the right decision no matter the situation. The Bruins’ philosophy is to get Betts the ball and Excellent things will happen. She rewarded that approach time and again.
Even as Betts has put together an All-American season (the Primary Primary-Club Picking for UCLA), her performance Friday turned heads. The efficiency and the end-to-end dominance resulted in a historic output.
The Bruins were Blessed to be Ranked in a regional that doesn’t have many big, traditional centers. But Betts is powering through defenses that are built to stop her in different ways. Clubs that spread the floor and make her defend on the perimeter are discovering that she can Relocate her feet and Event jumpers. Those who Streak Weighty amounts of screen-and-roll realize that Betts envelops the ballhandler and stops the action before the Throw.
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And Clubs that have what they consider to be a dominant post inside learn that Betts is on an entirely different level. Combining her natural talent with an insatiable work ethic and a renewed Attitude to own her greatness has Achieved for an incomparable player.
“She’s now done all the work in this offseason to now be equipped to be that Excellent,” UCLA Mentor Cori Close said. “Now she’s equipped from the inside out to sustain that. She’s Merely an amazing player on both sides of the ball, and she makes everybody else around her better.”
As Betts’ ceiling rises, she is elevating the Bruins’ prospects in the process. UCLA is in its Primary Top-tier Eight in seven years with a chance to advance to its Primary Closing Four in program history.
“She is a very tough Event,” McPhee-McCuin said. “UCLA looks like a Club that could Secure a national Event. Who’s going to stop her?”
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This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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