UCLA, Cal Baptist, Creighton and UNLV comprise „one of the most difficult and complete first and second rounds,“ according to UCLA coach Cori Close.
Four women’s basketball teams will pile into Pauley Pavilion this weekend for the opening round of the NCAA Tournament: No. 2 seed UCLA, No. 7 Creighton, No. 10 UNLV and No. 15 Cal Baptist.
“We’re gonna have our work cut out for us just right here in LA,” UCLA head coach Cori Close told reporters on Sunday.
“People may not know how good Creighton really is or Cal Baptist and sometimes I think people get all excited about name recognition, but we may have one of the most difficult and complete first and second rounds.”
The teams make up one of four groups in the Albany Regional 2, which is one of the most challenging regionals in the bracket with UCLA, No. 1 Iowa, No. 3 LSU and No. 4 Kansas State in the mix. UCLA, Iowa and LSU were ranked in the top eight in the most recent AP Top 25 rankings and Kansas State was the 15th-ranked team.
The Bruins will begin their climb against Riverside’s Cal Baptist (28-3) on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. Close said that she had watched the Lancers’ 75-74 win over Stephen F. Austin in the WAC championship game, but had no other connections with the team beyond speaking on panels about international recruiting alongside coach Jarrod Olson.
“He’s really good. It’s been good consistently,” Close said. “But the reality is, right after this (press conference), I’m going to go to our scouting staff meetings and we will have more film that we know what to do with almost instantaneously.
