By R.L. Bynum
LAS VEGAS — No. 11 North Carolina gave No. 3 UCLA its best shot for one half, but couldn’t hold off the Bruins’ onslaught after that. The Tar Heels clearly showed, though, that they can play with anybody in the country.
After UNC held UCLA to its lowest first-half scoring output of the season and only trailed by one, the Bruins poured it on with a 10–0 third-quarter run and coasted to a 78–60 victory Thursday in the WBCA Challenge at the Michelob Ultra Arena.
Coach Courtney Banghart was impressed with how her UNC (2–1) competed against the 4–0 Bruins.
“Statistically, we took more shots and we turned the ball over less,” she said of the first-half effort. “You win a lot of those games. You don’t win them if you shoot 34% from two and 25% from three.”
Banghart likes to play challenging games early in the season to gauge how good her team is and where its weak spots are.
“There’s enough here,” Banghart said. “We’ve just got to keep getting better. It’s not going to happen in the first month. We knew that. But I know this group, and I know they’ll continue to push to get better and better.”
Banghart looked at the box score and thought it had to be a mistake when it showed that her team only scored 26 second-half points.
“It doesn’t seem right,” she said, still processing it. “We can continue to grow on the offensive end.”
For a time, it looked like former UCLA guard Elina Aarnisalo might beat her old team, and she had a lot to do with making it possible. She led UNC with 13 points and had three rebounds, three assists, a block and a steal.
“Of course, I was a little bit more nervous than for a regular game,” Aarnisalo said. “But as the game started, it’s a basketball game that I’ve done my whole life. It was fun playing my old teammates, seeing them do good.”
The second half didn’t go the Tar Heels’ way, but Indya Nivar (11 points, 4 assists) said that they showed the country their potential.
“We know we can compete with the best teams in the country. We have all we need,” she said. “It’s just putting it all together for 40 minutes.”
Aarnisalo, who knows what it takes to make the Final Four after getting there with the Bruins last season, sees a high ceiling for UNC.
“We see it every day in practice,” she said. “We can do it. We just need to figure out the way to do it for 40 minutes.”
Ciera Toomey (right) had a career-high three 3-pointers and scored 11 points. Toomey led UNC in rebounding with six, but UCLA dominated the boards 46–29.
Banghart noted the challenge of defending UCLA center Lauren Betts, who registered a double-double with 20 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and two blocks.
“Betts is a problem,” Banghart said. “You have to really manage that problem. That middle ball screen created some problems for us.”
Aarnisalo came out hot. She got a rebound on one end, and a driving bucket gave UNC a 5–2 lead 3:40 into the game.
After the Bruins took a five-point lead, UNC finished the first quarter on a 10–0 run, with two Nivar 3-pointers and two Aarnisalo layups, one after her steal. UNC led 17–12 after the first quarter, in which there were five lead changes.
“Credit to North Carolina,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “They were the aggressor in the first quarter. They really sped us up. We didn’t dictate how the game was played. They dictated how the game was played.”
The second quarter featured three big runs: two 8–0 UCLA runs, one to start the quarter and erase UNC’s lead, and a 9–0 UNC run. In that Tar Heels run, they got a Toomey 3-pointer, a Nyla Harris layup after Reniya Kelly’s steal, a Harris follow shot and a Harris steal and layup.
Blanca Thomas, who made her season debut, hit a 3-pointer with 26 seconds left, but Carlisse Leger-Walker’s driving shot with two seconds remaining gave UCLA a 35–34 halftime lead.
After turning six turnovers into nine points in the first half, UNC had only two points off three turnovers after halftime.
“There was a point in the second quarter that 18 out of their 20-something points were off of our turnovers or offensive rebounds,” Close said. “The rest of the game was only two points off of offensive rebounds or our turnovers. That’s the difference in the game right there.”
The Bruins seized control with a 10–0 run to end the third quarter with a 58–46 lead. A Banghart time out after six points of that run didn’t slow it down as the Tar Heels went scoreless for the last 4½ minutes of the quarter.
A Toomey layup in the first 12 seconds of the final quarter ended the UNC drought, but UCLA responded with an 11–4 run to go up by 17 points on a short Kiki Rice jumper with 5:31 left. UNC never got it under 14 after that and the lead reached 19 on a Rice drive with 1:14 left.
“I hope that we showed we can compete with the best,” Nivar said. “I know it’s not there yet, but we have all that we need to compete. It’s going to come together for sure when the time is right.”
Thomas had a solid season debut. She was wearing a heating wrap just above her waist during second-half warmups, suggesting it may be a lower-back issue that she’s been dealing with.
After Kelly (2 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists) only combined for 15 minutes in the first two games, she played 22 against UCLA.
Close praised Aarnisalo’s effort against her former team and shared a personal moment after the game.
“Of course, tonight I didn’t want her to do great,” Close said. “I wanted us to win. But for her life and for her career, I’m for her, and I’m excited for her. It was great seeing her play with that confidence and sort of that moxie. I hugged her on our line through and I said, ‘You will always have a place in the Bruin hearts, and we wish you nothing but the best.’ And I really mean that.”
The Bruins got impressive games from Rice (15 points, 10 rebounds), Angela Dugalic (14 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists) and Gabriela Jaquez (12 points, 6 rebounds).
“I want to thank WBCA for putting this event on,” Banghart said. “It was great for us to have an opportunity to play such a good team so early. That was the design as we prepare for our journey with a lot of new pieces and a lot of young guys.”
NOTES — Carolina plays its second game in the WBCA Challenge at 6 p.m. ET Saturday (ESPN+) against Fairfield (3–0), which beat South Florida 80–72 in Thursday’s first game. … It was a disappointing crowd of only 1,588. … The UNC team has been in Las Vegas since Tuesday. … The Tar Heels return to North Carolina to play at N.C. A&T on Thursday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m. (FloSports). … UCLA’s 35 first-half points were its lowest of the season (previous low 37 against San Diego State.) … Aarnisalo started for the second time this season after Lanie Grant started in her place against Elon. … For the first time in three games, freshman Taissa Queiroz wasn’t in uniform for UNC. … Taliyah Henderson’s entire family (parents, two sisters and a brother) was courtside in Las Vegas after the short drive (by western U.S. standards) from the Phoenix area. … This was the second time in three seasons that UNC has played in an event at an arena next to a casino. The arena in Las Vegas is adjacent to the Mandalay Bay casino. In 2023, UNC played UConn at the Mohegan Sun Arena, adjacent to the Mohegan Sun casino, in Uncasville, Conn, in the Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase. … UNC still leads the series with UCLA 6–5, but the Bruins have a 2–1 edge in neutral-site games.
No. 3 UCLA 78, No. 11 UNC 60
| Date | Day/month | Time | Opponent/event (current ranks) | TV/ record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October | ||||
| 30 | Thursday | L, 91–82 | No. 3 South Carolina in Atlanta | Exhib. |
| November | ||||
| 3 | Monday | W, 90–42 | vs. N.C. Central | 1–0 |
| 6 | Thursday | W, 71–37 | vs. Elon | 2–0 |
| WBCA Challenge Las Vegas | ||||
| 13 | Thursday | L, 78–60 | vs. No. 4 UCLA | 2–1 |
| 15 | Saturday | W, 82–68 | vs. Fairfield | 3–1 |
| ——————————— | ||||
| 20 | Thursday | W, 85–50 | at N.C. A&T | 4–1 |
| 23 | Sunday | W, 94–48 | vs. UNCG | 5–1 |
| Cancun Challenge Cancun, Mexico | ||||
| 27 | Thursday | W, 83–48 | vs. South Dakota St. | 6–1 |
| 28 | Friday | W, 85–73 | vs. Kansas State | 7–1 |
| 29 | Saturday | W, 80–63 | vs. Columbia | 8–1 |
| December | ACC/SEC Women’s Challenge | |||
| 4 | Thursday | W, 79–64 | at No. 2 Texas | 8–2 |
| ——————————— | ||||
| 7 | Sunday | W, 82–40 | vs. Boston Univ. | 9–2 |
| 14 | Sunday | L, 76–66, OT | vs. No. 13 Louisville | 9–3, 0–1 ACC |
| 17 | Wednesday | W, 84–34 | vs. UNCW | 10–3 |
| 21 | Sunday | W, 93–74 | vs. Charleston Southern | 11–3 |
| 29 | Monday | 8 p.m. | at Boston College | ACCN |
| January | ||||
| 1 | Thursday | Noon | vs. California | ACCN |
| 4 | Sunday | 1 p.m. | vs. Stanford | ESPN |
| 11 | Sunday | 1 p.m. | at No. 18 Notre Dame | ESPN |
| 15 | Thursday | 7 p.m. | vs. Miami | ACCN Extra |
| 18 | Sunday | 2 p.m. | at Florida State | The CW |
| 22 | Thursday | 8 p.m. | at Georgia Tech | ACCN |
| 25 | Sunday | 2 p.m. | vs. Syracuse | The CW |
| February | ||||
| 2 | Monday | 6 p.m. | at N.C. State | ESPN2 |
| 5 | Thursday | 7 p.m. | vs. Clemson | ACCN |
| 8 | Sunday | 2 p.m. | vs. Wake Forest | ACCN |
| 12 | Thursday | 6 p.m. | vs. SMU | ACCN |
| 15 | Sunday | 1 p.m. | at Duke | ABC |
| 19 | Thursday | 6 p.m. | at Virginia Tech | ACCN |
| 22 | Sunday | Noon | vs. Pittsburgh | ACCN |
| 26 | Thursday | 7 p.m. | at Virginia | ACCN Extra |
| March | ||||
| 1 | Sunday | Noon | vs. Duke | ESPN |
| ACC tournament | ||||
| 4–8 | Wed.-Sun | Gas South Arena, Duluth, Ga. | ||
| NCAA tournament | ||||
| 20–24 | Fri.-Mon. | First, second rounds | ||
| 27–30 | Fri.-Mon. | Regionals Fort Worth, Texas, and Sacramento, Calif. | ||
| April | ||||
| 3, 5 | Fri., Sun | Final Four Phoenix |
Photos courtesy of UNC Athletics
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