Mowe Means Less as UCLA’s Winning Streak Ends

EUGENE, Ore. —  UCLA brought the winning streak, league-best statistics and its headache-free best player, Maylana Martin.

The Bruins made one mistake.

They brought all that to Mowe-town.

Jenny Mowe, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound sophomore center, anchored an inspired Oregon inside defense and the Ducks handed UCLA its first Pacific 10 Conference defeat Thursday night, 106-79.

The Bruin are 17-5 overall and 9-1 in the conference.

UCLA’s 10-game winning streak came apart before a roaring, near-capacity crowd of 7,134 at McArthur Court, Oregon’s fourth-biggest women’s crowd ever.

Oregon (17-4, 8-2) first challenged, then shut down UCLA inside, with Mowe alone blocking seven shots, four of them taken by 6-foot-4 Janae Hubbard.

UCLA’s inside game, so dominant in the winning streak and in key conference victories over Stanford and Washington, simply vanished.

Oregon’s ball-hawking, aggressive defense made a shambles of UCLA’s Pac-10 leading team offense (88 points a game before Thursday). And also its league-best 50% shooting percentage. Thursday night, the Bruins shot 33%.

In a nutshell, here’s what happened to UCLA: Mowe and guard Shaquala Williams, a quick 5-6 freshman guard, outplayed UCLA’s center, Hubbard, and all-conference point guard Erica Gomez.

Mowe blocked Hubbard’s first shot a minute into the game, and set, she would say later, the tone.

Williams made six of eight three-point shots and finished with 31 points.

Gomez? Williams played her off her feet. Gomez came in leading the Pac-10 with 7.8 assists a game. Thursday night, she had one.

“I feel like I set a tone early, with the blocks on Janae,” Mowe said.

“I didn’t help us much down there [the 76-72 UCLA win at Pauley Pavilion on Jan. 10], so I really wanted to be a factor tonight.”

She won’t get an argument from UCLA Coach Kathy Olivier.

“Mowe alters shots, and she certainly did that tonight,” she said.

“We score points in the paint, and she wouldn’t let us tonight. Oregon played great position defense.”

Martin, after sitting out three games and two weeks of practice because of migraines, came off the bench to score 15 points in 24 minutes, but her timing was clearly off.

She was five for 13 from the floor, but she wasn’t the only poor shooter. Marie Philman, who came in having made 28 of her previous 36 shots, was four for 11. Gomez was three for eight and LaCresha Flannigan four for 12.

“May missed all that practice, and I think it showed,” Olivier said. “We need her big time in games like this.”

UCLA played the last 13:33 with four fouls on four players. Martin, Marie Philman and Carly Funicello eventually fouled out.

A Martin play with 14:49 left typified UCLA’s night. She had an uncontested shot under the basket--and blew it. Then she committed a silly foul on the rebound, then Oregon scored at the other end.

Mowe and teammates Natasha O’Brien and Lisa Bowyer blocked UCLA out under the offensive basket all night. The result was no 14, 16 or 18-point runs, commonly seen during the Bruins’ winning streak.

Oregon State 55, USC 49--The Trojan women shot only 29%, but kept it close before losing at Corvallis.

Sissel Pierce led the Beavers (11-8, 3-7) with 17 points.

Camille Norwood had 12 points for the Trojans (6-13, 2-8), who made only 18 of 62 shots.