LOS ANGELES – UCLA rallied for a 71-60 win over USC to complete a regular season sweep of the crosstown rivals on Sunday night at Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins improved to 8-9 overall and 4-2 in the Pac-12 while the Trojans dropped to 11-6 overall and 3-3 in league play. The Bruins picked up five more points for the SoCal BMW Crosstown Cup and now leads the Trojans 55-10.
UCLA Head Coach Cori Close announced the suspension of six players for the first half at the start of the game due to a violation of unspecified team rules.
The opening 20 minutes was a tight affair with five ties until USC used a 9-1 run late in the first half, breaking a 23-23 tie to lead 32-24 with :45 remaining. The Trojans led 32-26 at the break after outrebounding the Bruins 28-19 and outshooting UCLA from the field, 35.5 percent (11-for-31) to 31.0 percent (9j-for-29).
Alexyz Vaioletama had a strong first half for the visitors with 13 points and seven rebounds. Kari Korver led UCLA with nine points in the opening 20 minutes.
USC held its largest lead of the second half at seven points (40-33) after a traditional three-point play by McKenzie Calvert with 17:03 to go. But the Bruins engineered an 11-3 run, sparked by freshman Jordin Canada's six points, to take a 44-43 lead (13:35). From that point on, it was a tight afair with six more ties and four more lead changes as Brianna Barrett sank a pair of free throws to tie the game at 60-60 with 3:06 to go. It was all Bruins after that as UCLA scored the game's final 11 points as USC missed its last eight shots of the game.
Korver ended the night with a career-high 23 points, including an 8-for-8 performance from the charity stripe while shooting 3-for-6 from beyond the arc. The evening was especially enjoyable for the redshirt sophomore after going scoreless in this year's earlier meeting against the Trojans.
Junior Nirra Fields just missed a double-double with 14 points and nine rebounds. She contributed three assists and two steals for the all-around effort. Canada rounded out a trio of Bruins in double figures with 15 points, also adding six boards, two assists and one steal, all in the second half.
Vaioletama led the Trojans with the game's only double-double of 17 points and 12 rebounds.
The Bruins turned a nine-rebound deficit into a four-carom advantage by game's end, outrebounding the Trojans 46-42. UCLA also shot 46.9 percent (15-for-32) in the second half to outshoot USC for the game, 39.3 percent to 33.9 percent.
UP NEXT
USC: Hosts California on Friday, Jan. 23, 2015 at 7:00 p.m. (PT).
UCLA: Hosts No. 13 Stanford on Friday, Jan. 23, 2015 on the Pac-12 Networks at 7:00 p.m. (PT).