No. 2 UCLA grabs dominant road win at Arkansas

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

UCLA looked every bit the women’s college basketball Final Four contender it is being billed inside Bud Walton Arena on Sunday.

No. 2 and unbeaten UCLA dominated the paint, the glass and the scoreboard for most of the game while downing unranked Arkansas 81-66 before a crowd of 4,261 fans.

The Razorbacks jumped out to 6-0 lead on pair of 3-pointers by Saylor Poffenabarger and Maryam Dauda, but the Bruins answered with a 15-2 run and were never really headed from that point on.

UCLA (7-0) downed UConn 78-67 over the Thanksgiving Holiday in the Cayman Island and then put together an even better effort in getting a road win at Arkansas.

The Bruins led by as many as 23 against UConn and 26 against the Razorbacks while going up 74-48 early in the third quarter.

Arkansas did make it much better looking cosmetically at the end by outscoring UCLA 22-9 in the final stanza.

Stanford transfer Loren Betts, a 6-7 center had a double-double of 20 points (9 of 9 from the field) and 10 rebounds as the visitors out-rebounded the hosts 56-26.

Kiki Rice and London Jones each added 12 points, Gabriela Jacquez 10 points and 11 rebounds, Angela Dugalic 9 points and and Chairsma Osborne 8 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists.

Taliah Scott led Arkansas with 23 points, Dauda 14, Poffenbarger 12 points and 7 rebounds and Makayla Daniels 10.

The Razorbacks will return to action on Thursday night when they host Louisiana Tech at 7 p.m.

Photo by John D. James