logo
Women's NCAA Spokane 1 roundup: No. 1 UCLA thrashes Southern

Women's NCAA Spokane 1 roundup: No. 1 UCLA thrashes Southern

Reuters22-03-2025

March 22 - Lauren Betts scored 14 points to lead six UCLA players in double figures as the top-seeded Bruins cruised to an 84-46 rout of 16th-seeded Southern in the first round of the Women's NCAA Tournament on Friday in Los Angeles.
Londynn Jones added 11 points for the Bruins (31-2), who will host eighth-seeded Richmond on Sunday in the second round of the Spokane 1 Region.
UCLA's Kiki Rice, Gabriela Jaquez, Janiah Barker and Elina Aarnisalo each chipped in 10 points. Barker also grabbed 10 rebounds as the Bruins nearly doubled the Jaguars on the glass, 44-23.
Aniya Gourdine scored 10 points for Southern (21-15), which was coming off its first NCAA win on Wednesday nigh when it stopped UC San Diego 68-56 in the First Four. But the Jaguars weren't about to make it two in a row, even though they were reasonably competitive for a half, trailing 38-26 at the break.
However, Southern made only 19 of 60 shots from the field (31.7 percent) and couldn't keep the Bruins off the foul line, where UCLA connected on 23 of 30 (76.7 percent).
No. 4 Baylor 73, No. 13 Grand Canyon 60
The 1-2 punch of Antoinette Vonleh and Jada Walker carried the Bears to a win over the Antelopes in the first round of the Spokane 1 Region of the NCAA Women's Tournament in Waco, Texas.
Vonleh scored 25 points and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds before fouling out, while Walker added 17 points and four assists. Yaya Felder contributed 12 points as the Bears (28-7) hit 50 percent of their field goal attempts and earned a 44-33 rebounding advantage.
Trinity San Antonio poured in a game-high 27 points to pace the Lopes (32-3) but was limited to 26 minutes due to foul trouble. Laura Erikstrup added 11 for Grand Canyon, which made just 23 of 67 attempts (34.3 percent) from the field.
Baylor trailed 18-13 late in the first quarter but rallied to grab a 31-28 edge at halftime and steadily pulled away in the second half.
After the game, On3sports reported that Grand Canyon coach Molly Miller resigned to take the same position at Arizona State.
No. 5 Ole Miss 83, No. 12 Ball State 65
Starr Jacobs and Kennedy Todd-Williams each collected double-doubles as the Rebels cruised to a win over the Cardinals in Waco, Texas.
Jacobs scored 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for the Rebels (21-10), who led by as many as 29 points in the third quarter. Todd-Williams added 14 points and 11 boards, while Madison Scott chipped in 15 points.
Ole Miss earned a 51-32 advantage on the boards, turning 17 offensive caroms into 22 second-chance points. It also boasted a 46-28 advantage in paint points. Ally Becki scored a game-high 19 points for the Cardinals (27-8), while Lachelle Austin added 13 points and a team-high eight rebounds.
No. 8 Richmond 74, No. 9 Georgia Tech 49
The Spiders established a 19-7 first quarter lead and never looked back while walloping the Yellow Jackets in Los Angeles.
Maggie Doogan paced Richmond (28-6) with 30 points, 15 rebounds and six assists. Doogan hit 11 of 18 shots from the field, including 5 of 8 from 3-point range.
Addie Budnik added 14 points, on 6-of-7 shooting, and seven boards for Richmond, which hit 30 of 60 attempts from the field and canned 9 of 23 3-point tries (39.1 percent). The Spiders earned a 37-33 advantage on the boards and assisted on 19 buckets.
The Yellow Jackets (22-12) struggled to make shots, converting just 20 of 63 attempts from the field (31.7 percent). Tonie Morgan was Georgia Tech's only double-figure scorer with 12 points, and she added seven rebounds and five assists. Georgia Tech hit just 4 of 23 (17.4 percent) from beyond the arc.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

UCLA softball beats Oregon in WCWS with walk-off home run
UCLA softball beats Oregon in WCWS with walk-off home run

The Herald Scotland

time31-05-2025

  • The Herald Scotland

UCLA softball beats Oregon in WCWS with walk-off home run

The ball landed just over the fence in center field and into the hands of a fan in attendance. "We just have an unwavering faith in each other and what we are doing," UCLA catcher Alexis Ramirez told NCAA sideline reporter Michella Chester after the game. THE GAME ALWAYS KNOWS!! JESSICA CLEMENTS WALK-OFF HOMER TO TAKE GAME ONE!! #GoBruins — UCLA Softball (@UCLASoftball) May 30, 2025 Ramirez played a key role in the game for the Bruins, going 2-for-3 with a two-run home run. The Bruins held a 2-1 lead going into the final inning before the Ducks tied the game after a controversial obstruction call at home plate. Oregon's Paige Sinicki slid toward home plate but was tagged by Ramirez, who appeared to have her foot on the plate. The Ducks challenged the call and were awarded the run after the call was reversed. Oregon ties it in the top of the 7th on ESPN2 ???? After review, UCLA was called for obstruction on the game-tying play. — espnW (@espnW) May 30, 2025 WCWS bracket 2025: Scores, schedule, matchups for NCAA softball tournament As a result of the victory, the Bruins will advance to the winner's bracket, while Oregon falls into the loser's bracket and will play Ole Miss Friday night to try to keep their championship hopes alive. The Bruins dramatic home run was the second walk-off homer on the opening day of the Women's College World Series. Earlier Thursday, Oklahoma's Ella Parker hit a three-run homer with two outs in the bottom of the seventh to lead the Sooners to a 4-3 comeback victory over Tennessee. It was also UCLA's second walk-off homer in less than a week. UCLA was one out from elimination in Game 2 of the super regionals before Jordan Woolery hit a game-winning home run in the seventh inning to beat the South Carolina Gamecocks. The Bruins went on to win Game 3 of the super regional to advance to the WCWS. Who will UCLA softball play next? UCLA will play Texas Tech on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. Texas Tech beat Ole Miss 1-0 with Lauren Allred scoring a run in the fourth inning after scoring on an error.

Opinion: College sports leaders act like children in CFP squabble
Opinion: College sports leaders act like children in CFP squabble

The Herald Scotland

time28-05-2025

  • The Herald Scotland

Opinion: College sports leaders act like children in CFP squabble

But there was one issue creating significant debate within the room: A proposal that would allow schools to pay for lodging, meals and entertainment for up to four family members on official recruiting visits. To normal people, unencumbered by the bureaucracy of tedium that rules college sports, this is common sense. Of course an athletic department with a nine-figure budget trying to attract top talent should pay lodging, meals and entertainment expenses for up to four family members. But for these folks, College Athletics Brain always takes over. So naturally, someone in the room wanted to litigate exactly what that meant. After all, if you're at UCLA, entertainment expenses could mean four courtside seats to a Lakers game that might be worth more than a two-bedroom house in, say, Starkville, Mississippi. And wouldn't providing that for recruits just be ... unfair? That was the moment I realized most of these people representing the richest schools and conferences - many of whom are still in position to shape the future of college sports a decade later - were simply incapable of governing themselves, even though they had portrayed the ability to govern themselves as necessary to save the NCAA. It's not that the people who work in college sports lack the intellectual capacity to understand that these tiny, perceived competitive advantages from school to school and conference to conference are ultimately inconsequential to their collective business interests. Their culture simply doesn't allow them to see the big picture through a froth of constant concern that one of their competitors is pulling a fast one. It's slightly humorous - but mostly pathetic - how little has changed in what drives the so-called leadership of college sports even as everything else in their world has changed immensely in the decade since. Now here comes SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, the thin-skinned pedant of Birmingham, all up in his feelings as the league's spring meetings get underway this week in Florida because some of his colleagues have dared to question the motivations behind Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti jockeying for four automatic bids each in a new 16-team CFP. "I don't need lectures from others about good of the game," Sankey said Sunday, meeting with reporters before what will surely be intense internal discussions about what the next CFP should look like. "I don't lecture others about good of the game. And coordinating press releases about good of the game, OK, you can issue your press statement, but I'm actually looking for ideas to move us forward." Keep in mind, this was Sankey's response to a series of questions about a proposal that would assign four CFP bids every year to the SEC and Big Ten before a single game has been played, while the ACC and Big 12 get only two guaranteed bids. If Sankey was expecting his colleagues to lap up that gruel and leave a five-star review, he's not living in the land of reality. You can't offer a strongarm and expect a handshake in return. "In our own room, I've had athletics directors tell me directly that we've given too much away to arrive at these political compromises, that we move teams from outside the (top 12 in the rankings into the playoff)," Sankey explained. "How many of those compromises does it take?" The scale of structuring a 16-team playoff may not be comparable to free meals on a recruiting visit, but they come from the same place: A never-ending battle in college athletics between those with the most power stacking the deck in their favor and those fearing that every acknowledgement of inherent inequality will be a ticket to second-class citizenry. And the especially childish part of this debate is the SEC and Big Ten would be virtually assured of getting at least four teams into the Playoff organically nearly every year, notwithstanding a possible outlier here or there. It should be equally clear that codifying the so-called "4-4-2-2-1-1-1-1" structure into the CFP format would be a toxic indulgence by the SEC and Big Ten, yielding no practical value either for themselves or greater public confidence in the sport. But the underlying takeaway is the same as it was when I listened to those debates in 2016 between the really rich schools and the kinda rich schools over recruiting visits: If this is how difficult it's going to be for the SEC and Big Ten to reach an accord with the ACC and Big 12 over something that should be driven by common sense, what chance in hell do they have of pulling together and fixing the truly difficult issues swallowing their industry? Intelligent, well-educated men and women making seven figures to be executives of a sports league are being reduced to children in a fight over playground territory because they overthink themselves into paranoia that one decision on the margins of a $1.3 billion annual enterprise is going to be unfair to them. And you wonder why college sports is at a complete gridlock, now in Year 6 of begging Congress for legislation that will mitigate the chaos of the transfer portal and NIL. But what gums up progress in college sports isn't an ideological battle between the big schools and the small schools over the direction of the NCAA and how flexible its rules should be. It is, was and has always been the inability of the big schools to treat each other fundamentally as business partners rather than competitors. The CFP debate is merely a symptom of a much more invasive disease, one that the key stakeholders in college sports would rather pout about than make any significant concessions to cure.

Former Chiefs coach Eric Bieniemy berates Bears players during rookie practice
Former Chiefs coach Eric Bieniemy berates Bears players during rookie practice

Daily Mail​

time11-05-2025

  • Daily Mail​

Former Chiefs coach Eric Bieniemy berates Bears players during rookie practice

Bears running backs coach Eric Bieniemy is already making a strong impression in his new role, as recent video shows him ripping his players during the team's rookie camp. Bieniemy, a two-time Super Bowl winner as the Chiefs' offensive coordinator, re-joined the NFL ranks this winter after one season as UCLA's assistant head coach and offensive coordinator. And the 55-year-old had some harsh words for Chicago's young running backs on Saturday, as he berated them in a now-viral clip. As the running backs went through a pass-catching drill with small hurdles at the end, Bienemy yelled at one player to 'pick your f***ing eyes up.' He then barked at another player after he apparently touched a cone. 'Why are you touching the f***ing cone?,' he asked. "Don't touch the cones!" - Eric Bieniemy applying pressure to his young RBs 🤬 — CHGO Bears (@CHGO_Bears) May 10, 2025 Fans had a wide range of reactions to the moment as they took to X. 'holy s*** did not know EB was back in the league. chicago is so screwed next year,' one wrote. 'This is how he was talking too them kids at UCLA they did not like it haha,' a second added. However, a third added: 'I love when coaches coach!!!!' And a fourth said, 'Love it. Exactly what we need.' The tough-talking coach was linked with several head coaching jobs after playing a role in a prolific Kansas City offense which went on to win two Super Bowls. However, interviews with the likes of the Commanders, Colts and Falcons did not result in him getting a head coaching job, and he ultimately left the Chiefs following the 2022 season for the same job in Washington. There, his hard-nosed coaching style drew the ire of some players, with head coach Ron Rivera revealing at one point that players were struggling to adjust to Bieniemy's ways. He was ultimately let go by the team after Rivera was fired in early 2024. Notably, Bieniemy called plays in Washington, while that task was performed by head coach Andy Reid in Kansas City. His Washington offense, led by quarterback Sam Howell (who was a backup last season), finished just 25th in points. He'll have a young group of running backs to work with in Chicago, led by 26-year-old D'Andre Swift. The group also includes 2023 fourth-round pick Roschon Johnson and rookie seventh-rounder Kyle Monangai out of Rutgers. The Bears finished just 25th in rushing yards per game last season, so Bieniemy certainly has his work cut out for him.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store