Pirates Battle No. 11 UCLA To The Wire In Setback

Sunday, December 17

South Orange, N.J.

1 p.m.

Seton Hall University

7-3

UCLA

8-2

UCLA

Seton Hall

12/17/2017 5:26:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score PDF BOX

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. – The Seton Hall women's basketball team (7-3) threw everything it had at No. 11 UCLA (8-2), but ultimately fell by a score of 77-68 in front of 1,165 fans at a raucous Walsh Gym. The hard-fought loss came against the highest-ranked opponent the Pirates have faced under fifth-year head coach Anthony Bozzella.

Nicole Jimenez (Miami, Fla.) had a coming-out party for The Hall in the setback, exploding for a career-high of 20 points on 6-of-7 shooting in 27 minutes off the bench. Coming into the contest, Jimenez had scored 24 points through her first nine games as a Pirate. Donnaizha Fountain (Roxbury, Mass.) also had a big day for The Hall, going for 23 points and eight rebounds.

The Pirates suffered a cold shooting first frame but a Jimenez triple falling out of bounds to beat the first quarter horn cut an early UCLA lead to 22-15 after one. The two sides played dead-even in the second and third periods (38-38) and The Hall went into the fourth trailing 60-53.

Turning Point
Down 64-56 with 7:42 to play, Fountain came up with a steal on the defensive end before finishing a lay-up to cut the lead to six. UCLA answered on the next possession with a 3-pointer, but the Pirates surged right back with another Fountain basket, before a Jayla Jones-Pack (Amityville, N.Y.) lay-in made a five-point game with 6:13 to go. The Bruins were again able to respond, scoring on the next possession and eventually pushing their lead back to nine with 4:10 to go. The five-point deficit was the closest The Hall would come in the final frame.

Head Coach Anthony Bozzella on the Result
"I give a lot of credit to a UCLA team that is extremely well-coached and has some of the best players in the country. I am extremely proud of the way our girls fought. We had a tough week of practice and we came out and competed all game. This is why you play competition like UCLA, to gauge yourself, and I'm proud of how we answered."

Inside The Numbers

The Pirates shot 36.9 percent from the floor, but that mark improved to 47.6 after a 4-for-23 first quarter
Conversely, the Bruins shot 51.7 percent from the floor and 5-for-15 from 3-point range
Deja Winters (Cleveland, Ohio) joined Jimenez and Fountain in double-figures with 11 points
UCLA finished with a slight 39-35 edge on the glass and a 36-28 advantage in points in the paint
The Pirates recorded 12 steals, led by three each from Taylor Brown, JaQuan Jackson and Jimenez
The Hall held a 33-27 advantage in bench scoring

News and Notes

The Hall drops to 1-2 all-time against UCLA after their first meeting with a current member of the Pac-12 since facing Colorado in 2009
The 1,165 attendance mark is a season-high and represented 70.4 percent attendance capacity
Jimenez nearly doubled her season scoring output with her career-high of 20 points, becoming the second Pirate this season with a 20-point effort
Fountain's 23 points were her most as a Pirate and the most for any SHU player in a game this season
The No. 11 Bruins are the highest ranked opponent during the Bozzella era and second Top-15 program to visit Walsh Gym under Bozzella, joining No. 14 Georgia in 2014

What's Ahead
The Pirates close out non-conference play with an 11 a.m. start against Fairfield on Thursday, Dec. 21. The contest will serve as The Hall's annual "Kids Day" game with a capacity crowd expected.