After the UCLA women’s basketball team’s win on Friday over Creighton 70-41 in San Francisco, Bruins’ head coach Cori Close unveiled one of the team’s mantras in her postgame press conference.
“We have a phrase that we use ‘Other people try to beat us, we are trying to be us,’ to quest to be us consistently,” Close said. “To be the best version of ourselves on a consistent basis.”
Close reiterated that to her team during halftime of Friday’s game, where after the Bruins crushed Creighton in the first quarter 26-4, before the Bluejays closed the gap to 42-23 at the intermission.
“I’m not a big swear-at-you person but I was pretty fiery at halftime,” Close said. “I was really pleased obviously with our first quarter but I sort of let them have it, in terms of what we did in the second quarter.”
Close cited the Bruins playing individually, rather than focusing on the gameplan and executing team basketball. UCLA had 14 assists off of 27 made field goals, UCLA’s second-lowest mark of the season ahead of only their ten assist performance against Hawaii.
The second half was an improvement in the eyes of Close, outscoring Creighton 28-18 in the second half to move to 12-0 on the season. UCLA will have to wait till after Christmas to try and improve to 13-0, with the Bruins hosting Nebraska for a Big Ten matchup next Sunday for UCLA’s first-ever Big Ten conference home game.