CLEVELAND REGIONAL: WILLIS, QUINN ARE HOT SHOTS FOR UCLA COMBINE FOR 44 POINTS IN BRUINS' NCAA TOURNEY WIN.

Byline: Ramona Shelburne Staff Writer

Lisa Willis has always been a bit of a streaky shooter.

In the first half of UCLA's first-round NCAA Tournament game against Bowling Green on Sunday morning, Willis wasn't hitting much of anything, but it didn't matter, because teammate Noelle Quinn couldn't miss.

In the second half, Quinn seemed to pass the hot hand over to Willis, who scored 17 of her game-high 23 points to lead the fifth-seeded Bruins to a 74-61 victory over the 12th-seeded Falcons at Purdue's Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind.

It was UCLA's first NCAA victory in seven years. The Bruins advance to play fourth-seeded Purdue on Tuesday night in the second round of the Cleveland Regional.

``I guess we just like to take turns,'' Willis joked. ``In the first half, Noelle couldn't miss. In the second half, my game just came.''

No. 21 UCLA (21-10) hadn't played in the 13 days since winning the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament in San Jose and the rust showed early. But Quinn shook it off in a hurry, making six of eight shots in the first half, scoring 16 of her 21 points, as UCLA went on an 18-2 and took a 21-point lead.

Bowling Green (28-3), the Mid-American Conference champion that came in with a 19-game win streak, had been a popular choice to pull a first-round upset. The Falcons brought a large contingent of fans to West Lafayette, a 5-hour drive from their Ohio campus, and they were joined by the hometown Boilermaker fans.

In the first few minutes of the second half, Bowling Green went on a 14-5 run to cut the lead down to 47-42, but Willis answered with a deep 3-pointer with 14:28 remaining to put the Bruins back up by eight and they were never seriously threatened again.

``The big three (Willis, Quinn and senior point guard Nikki Blue) has this sense of urgency now, and that's comforting to me as a coach,'' UCLA coach Kathy Olivier said. ``I'm actually putting more pressure on myself, because I don't want to let them down.''

Now Olivier and the Bruins turn their attention to fourth-seeded Purdue, which will have a decided home-court advantage. The Bruins beat Purdue at Pauley Pavilion last year, and lost on a last-second, half-court shot in West Lafayette two years ago.

``It's going to be way different. They'll have their regular crowd we'll have our 16 fans,'' Willis said. ``But we've experienced this before. It won't be any worse than two years ago (in a first-round NCAA Tournament game) when we played at Minnesota. Our team likes those situations. It motivates us.''

Ramona Shelburne, [phone]

ramona.shelburne(at)dailynews.com

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UCLA's Lisa Willis, right, drives on Bowling Green's Carin Horne in the second half of Sunday's first-round NCAA Tournament game.

Michael Conroy/Associated Press