The UCLA Bruins women’s basketball team will likely face Utah in the Pac-12 Conference tournament on Thursday.
Utah faces Arizona State on Wednesday night in the final game of the slate, and they should have no problems against the Sun Devils.
So, that would set up UCLA and Utah for a third meeting, and the previous two meetings had opposite outcomes.
The Utes won the first but UCLA blew out Utah last time out by 30 points. Jeff Metcalfe of The Mercury News (subscription required)offered some insight and explained why UCLA’s defense will be an issue for Utah
It’s hard to come up with a bigger gap between regular-season results than Utah winning 91-84 (in overtime) at home over UCLA on Jan. 22 and losing 82-52 on the road to the Bruins a month later. Again, the 3-point discrepancy was defining for the Utes, who went 13-of-28 in the first meeting and 3-of-15 in the second. Plus 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts was a bigger factor for UCLA at home. Utah figures to stay close, but the Bruins right now are fearsome on defense.
UCLA is rolling right now and has a ton of momentum, and if they face Utah, they should move on and play JuJu Watkins and USC on Friday.