Lauren Betts makes her feelings clear after first Big Ten win of the season for #1 ranked UCLA: "There's a lot of work to be done"
Lauren Betts and Kiki Rice helped the No. 1 UCLA Bruins start their Big Ten campaign with a 73-62 win against the Washington Huskies on Sunday. The center went 10 of 16 from the field to post a game-high 23 points while Rice scored 18 points on 8 of 13 shooting. However, despite a perfect start to the conference games, Betts believes that the Bruins have plenty to work on throughout the season.
When asked about the upcoming Big Ten games, the center claimed that the team needs to iron out some weak spots in order to continue winning.
"I mean it's really exciting, I'm proud of our team for how we played tonight but obviously there's a lot of work to be done," Betts said. (11:00)
"Like Coach Corey said, I think we just need to focus on rebounding. I thought that showed today that it's something that we could really work on in practice going forward. So, just making sure that we keep our head down and just stay present every single day and just getting better.
Star guard Kiki Rice doubled on Betts' take, citing that preparedness is key since UCLA will face highly competitive opponents in the conference games.
Lauren Betts and UCLA got outrebounded by the Huskies for the first time this season
A major reason behind UCLA's No. 1 spot in AP rankings is 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts. Even Dawn Staley, coach of the defending champions South Carolina Gamecocks, expressed complications in guarding the Bruins' center this year.
However, Washington's harmonized offense and ability to adapt its defense restricted Betts to just three rebounds in 32 minutes. With that, they outrebounded UCLA (30-32) for the first time this season.
"Credit to Washington, I thought they played really good basketball," UCLA coach Cori Close said. (0:08) "I thought they made great adjustments in the second half, that was the first team that's outrebounded us all year long. I thought they out-hustled us in some ways, so I really want to give credit to them."
"How they played, I thought they played closer to their identity than we did to ours."
It was the lowest rebounding affair of the season for Lauren Betts, also the lowest of her career when logging at least 30 minutes.