UA women upset UCLA in Pac-12 tourney

Published Mar. 7, 2012 8:47 p.m. ET

foxsports

Candice Warthen's jumper with 20.2 seconds left lifted 12th-seeded Arizona to a 61-57 win over fifth-seeded UCLA in Wednesday's opening round of the Pac-12 Conference women's basketball tournament in Los Angeles.

Warthen's jumper gave the Wildcats (15-16) only their second lead of the game, but it held up and sent them into Thursday's quarterfinals against fourth-seeded Arizona State at 3:15 p.m. (MST)

“I’m proud of our team for battling back,” head coach Niya Butts said. “We dug ourselves a hole early in the first half but unfortunately we have done that type of thing all year long. This time we happened to be on the good end of it. Our girls played hard, we got stops and I think that has been the difference throughout conference play. All of our games have had this type of pace and tone to them. We had not been able to get stops when we needed them. We could hit a big shot when we needed it but we couldn’t get a stop. Today, we were able to get those stops.”

UCLA led by 15 with 7:36 to play in the first half, but Arizona cut the lead to 33-30 at the half, then took a brief lead at 39-38 with 14:40 to play in the game.

The Bruins went back up by as much as seven points, 57-50 at the 4:55 mark but would not score for the rest of the game as tied it on five consecutive points by Davellyn Whyte and a layup by Aley Rohde.

Whyte led the Wildcats with 18 points, five rebounds, five steals and three assists. Warthen added 17 points, six rebounds and six assists, and Shanita Arnold had 14 points and four assists.

Junior forward Markel Walker paced UCLA with 22 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and three steals.