Pac-12 WBB: March Madness ends early as Utah, Colorado and UCLA eliminated in the Sweet 16

That Washington is the sole survivor two weeks into the postseason speaks volumes about a less-than-happy ending for the Pac-12.

The conference went 0-for-3 in the Sweet 16 and, for the first time since 2015, was shut out of the Elite Eight.

The only Pac-12 team still playing is Washington, which tied for eighth in the regular season with Oregon. The Huskies beat the Ducks 63-59 Sunday, advancing to the WNIT semifinals.

In the NCAA Tournament, Utah was the conference’s best hope to survive the Sweet 16. The No. 2 seed was on the free-throw line Friday with a chance to take the lead over No. 3 seed LSU with five seconds remaining. Jenna Johnson, a 73 percent foul shooter, missed both attempts, and LSU advanced with a 66-63 win.

“I love that kid,” Utah coach Lynne Roberts said of Johnson, a sophomore forward.

“It’s a growing experience for her. I don’t think that’ll happen again if she gets that opportunity again. If you said ‘Jenna Johnson on the line in this game to win it, would you take it?’ Heck yeah. And I’d take it tomorrow.”

Colorado, a No. 6 seed, led by a point at halftime over No. 2 Iowa on Friday and rallied to within four points late in the fourth quarter before falling 87-77.

And No. 4 UCLA never led against No. 1 South Carolina on Saturday, losing 59-43 in Greenville, South Carolina, as the defending national champions won their 41st consecutive game.

Wins by UCLA or Colorado would have been qualified as substantial upsets although not unimaginable for a conference with seven Final Four appearances since 2016. But for neither regular-season co-champions Stanford and Utah to reach the Elite Eight leaves the Pac-12 with a good, not great, postseason performance.

Its overall record in the NCAAs was 8-7.

Count LSU’s Kim Mulkey, a three-time NCAA champion while coaching at Baylor, as plenty impressed with Utah.

“It was two heavyweights going at it, and that’s what I told their coach after the game,” Mulkey said.

“We just made a few more plays. But so much respect because that team guards you. We will guard you. Everybody thought it was going to be this track meet,” between elite offenses.

Instead, it was a game in the low 50s in Greenville midway through the fourth quarter. The teams exchanged runs as the Tigers closed it out at the foul line.

Alissa Pili, the Pac-12 Player of the Year, was limited to 27 minutes due to foul trouble and scored 14 points, far below her average from the first weekend of the NCAAs (30.5 points per game).

The Utes had some defensive success against LSU’s All-American, 6-foot-3 forward Angel Reese, but the combination of Reese and 6-foot-4 LaDazhia Williams (24 points) proved too daunting.

“We weren’t going to go 1-on-1 with Angel down on the block,” Roberts said. “We were kind of digging in and shrinking it a little bit and she (Williams) got into a little bit of a rhythm.”

Utah made the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006 and was ranked as high as No. 3 in the AP poll, the best in school history.

Roberts is among four finalists for the Naismith Coach of the Year; the winner will be announced Wednesday.

Iowa’s Clark does in Colorado

The Colorado game turned on a big third quarter by Iowa. Or just call it the Caitlin Clark Show.

After scoring 13 points in the first half, the first-team All-American guard scored 11 in the third quarter on the way to 31 for the game, plus eight assists.

“She’s great and she was great tonight,” Colorado coach JR Payne said. “I’m not sure if she often scores that much at the rim. We tried to shade her to her right a little bit if we could. But she’s got great speed so she can get downhill when she wants to.”

Frida Formann led Colorado with 21 points, 19 of those in the first half, when she made all four of her 3-pointers. Formann fouled out with 6:37 left, but Quay Miller’s 10 fourth-quarter points kept the Buffs close late.

“I had a lot of space in the first half and my teammates were just finding me,” said Formann, whose parents from Denmark were on hand in Seattle.

“My job is to shoot the ball so that’s what I’m going to do. Then they adjusted defensively and were a little tighter.”

Colorado reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in 20 years.

Tougher second time for UCLA vs. South Carolina

For UCLA, the rematch against South Carolina was tougher sledding, something that’s common against the senior-laden Gamecocks.

South Carolina won more decisively in its second matchups with Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee and did so against the Bruins, winning by 16 points instead of the nine-point margin in November.

“The thing that led to our success in the first quarter at their place (in the first meeting) was our attack mentality,” Bruins coach Cori Close said.

“That’s all we kept talking about was you have to be the aggressors. If you allow them to play the way they want to play and never use it against them, you’re going to create a long night. That’s exactly what we did.”

UCLA’s defensive strategy of sagging off the 3-point line to crowd All-American forward Aliyah Boston kept the game close as South Carolina was 1-of-9 from 3-point range in the first half and 4-of-16 overall. But the Bruins couldn’t capitalize against the nation’s best scoring defense (50.4 ppg), with only Charisma Osborne scoring in double figures (14).

“We were trying to figure out how exactly they were guarding us,” Osborne said. “It just took too long.”

Added Close: “We didn’t do much of anything we had planned in terms of how we wanted to create ball reversal and get downhill on attacks. We were really standing and watching.”

Washington alive in WNIT

Washington used an 8-0 run in the fourth quarter at home to put away Oregon and collect its 19th win of the season.

Next up for the Huskies is Kansas (23-11) in the WNIT semifinals on Wednesday. It should be noted that the Jayhawks won impressively 77-50 at Arizona in December.

Four Pac-12 schools have won the WNIT this century: Oregon (2002), Cal (2010), UCLA (2015) and Arizona (2019), which reached the NCAA championship game two years later.

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