Plum’s 39 lead No. 12 Washington over No. 9 UCLA 82-70

Published 6:30 pm Sunday, January 8, 2017

Associated Press

SEATTLE — UCLA knew what to expect from Kelsey Plum and Washington. Stopping it was another matter.

Plum scored 39 points and Chantel Osahor added 19 points and 16 rebounds to lead the No. 12 Huskies past the ninth-ranked Bruins 82-70 on Sunday night in a game delayed an hour due to a power outage in the university neighborhood.

“Washington played to their strengths better than we played to our strengths,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “They obviously were going to allow us to shoot jump shots and play off a couple of our players. That worked to their favor, we couldn’t burn them on that enough times to pull them away, which makes our strength, which is playing north and south, harder to do. I liked our team’s fight, but Washington was the better team tonight.”

Plum, who came in to the game averaging a nation best 30.2 points , was 13-of-26 from the field and made all eight free throws for the Huskies (16-2, 4-1 Pac-12).

Washington, tops in the country with 191 made three-pointers entering the game, was 12-of-36 from beyond the arc, while UCLA finished 8-for-27 after missing its first 11.

“Thirty-three percent from three is the same as 50 percent from the two, so I will live with 33 as a team, for sure,” said Washington coach Mike Neighbors.

UCLA trailed 61-51 after three quarters, but pulled within 61-55 on two free throws by Kelli Hayes with 7:34 remaining. Plum then scored eight of the Huskies next 10 points, including a pair of 3-pointers, to boost the lead to 71-58 with 5:11 left.

“I happened to be the beneficiary of the two open threes, but it was just because of the defense that we got the stop on, that we were able to knock it down on the other end,” said Plum.

Monique Billings had 17 points, Kennedy Burke 14 and Kari Korver 13 for the Bruins (11-4, 2-2), who were upset 82-73 at Washington State on Friday.

Katie Collier added a career-high 15 rebounds, including eight offensive, to help Washington to a 45-42 advantage on the boards.

“We are not as good a three-point shooting team as Washington, but nobody in the country is,” Close said. “We’re not going to hang our hats on making threes. We need to get more possessions than our opponents. We weren’t able to turn them over and we weren’t able to dominate the glass, which are the two ways we can get more shots on the goal.”

Plum scored seven consecutive points to put the Huskies up 60-45 with 1:42 left in the third quarter, but the Bruins cut the lead to 61-51 entering the final period on Burke’s 3-pointer at the buzzer.

Korver opened the second quarter for UCLA with a basket from the top of the key, but Washington ran off eight consecutive points, opening a 30-17 lead on a putback by Hannah Johnson.

Burke scored seven points over the final 4:07 of the half as UCLA rallied within 39-31 at the break.

Washington forged a 22-15 lead after one quarter with six of its seven baskets from beyond the arc. UCLA was 0-for-8 from three-point range in the first quarter, but countered with eight points in the paint.