Gazette-Times reporter

The Pacific-10 Conference’s two most-improved women’s basketball teams meet at 7 tonight at Pauley Pavilion in their league openers.

Oregon State (9-1) has nearly equalled last year’s win total (12) and has won six games in row for the first time since the 2000-01 season. UCLA (9-2) is off to its best start in years under new coach Nikki Caldwell, a former Tennessee assistant who replaced Kathy Olivier after she resigned under pressure this offseason.

So something has to give, and the winner will have a leg up on the race to join Pac-10 heavyweights Stanford, California and Arizona State in the top five of the Pac-10 standings, which often leads to the NCAA tournament.

“We’ve been preparing for this since October 17, so we’re definitely ready,” senior point guard Mercedes Fox-Griffin said after practice on Tuesday. “We’ve taken this time to really prepare, and focus on fixing the things we didn’t get right” in the first 10 games.

“We started off strong in the non-conference season and we’ll try to start off Pac-10 the same way, and keep going forward from there.”

OSU coach LaVonda Wagner sees the Bruins as a more organized, disciplined, better-executing team than last season, when they were 10-8 in league and 16-15 overall.

“They’ve always had extremely good talent,” she said.

The Beavers must rebound, which they’ve done all season, and regain the offensive efficiency missing in recent games despite lopsided victories over UC Irvine, Cal State Bakersfield and Western Oregon.

“UCLA is very good because they’re either first or second in the nation in rebounding, so they get a lot of possessions,” Wagner said. “They score on turnovers, and on second-chance baskets.”

Wagner built part of OSU’s non-conference schedule with UCLA and similar Pac-10 teams in mind, so the Beavers wouldn’t be shocked by what they saw when league play began.

“We played North Carolina, Arkansas, Houston -. those are teams that do the exact same things, and are the types of teams we’ll see in the Pac-10, other than Stanford,” which is more half-court oriented because of its size, she said.

“Cal, Arizona State, UCLA - they want to rebound and run and want to turn you over and score off of your mistakes. We have to play our type of basketball. We can’t get in a track meet. We want to make sure they have to guard us.”

The Beavers haven’t finished above .500 in the Pac-10 since 2002 (10-8). They’re 15-39 in Fox-Griffin’s three seasons at OSU and were 4-14 the past two winters, despite non-league records somewhat similar to this year’s mark.

“Pac-10 is a different level,” Fox-Griffin said. “Everyone plays at a high level, the games are faster and more competitive.

“We have to continue what we’ve been doing, focus on getting stops, executing our plays and playing attention to the little things we’ve gone away from.”

BEAVERS WOMENS BASKETBALL REPORT

TODAY: at UCLA

TIPOFF: 7 p.m.

WHERE: Pauley Pavilion

RECORDS: OSU 9-1; UCLA 9-2

SERIES: UCLA leads 34-16

TV/RADIO: None/KTHH (AM 990)

UPDATE: The Beavers defeated Western Oregon 66-32 on Dec. 28 in their most recent game. It was their sixth win in a row; OSU has not started a season 9-1 since the 1995-96 squad opened at 10-1. -. UCLA fell 72-62 at Texas Tech on Dec. 29 in its most recent game. -. The Beavers were 6-0 in December, their first perfect December since the 1998-99 team was 5-0 in that month. -. Senior guard Mercedes Fox-Griffin became the ninth player in school history with more than 400 assists against CSU Bakersfield on Dec. 21. She has 410 overall and is ninth overall; next to pass is Chelle Flamoe (421). -. OSU received 11 votes in this week’s AP Top 25 but received no votes in the USA Today/ESPN weekly rankings. -. The Beavers RPI is 19 second in the Pacific-10 Conference to Stanford (4). UCLA is third at 23. -. Sophomore guard Talisa Rhea had three 3-point baskets against Western Oregon and has 95 career 3-point baskets, fifth all-time. Next to pass is A.J. Dionne (96). -. UCLA’s leading scorer is Doreena Campbell (12.1 ppg), but the Bruins have seven players who average 7.0 points or more and are scoring 75.8 points per game for first-year head coach Nikki Caldwell, a former Tennessee assistant. -. Sophomore Chinyera Ibekwe is the top rebounder (9.2 rpg). -. The Beavers play at USC at 2 p.m. Sunday; their next home game is 7 p.m. Jan. 8 against Arizona State.