Basketball
The UCLA women’s basketball team’s star-studded senior class will go out on the highest possible note. UCLA defeated South Carolina, 79-51, to win its first NCAA women’s basketball championship on Sunday, completing a 37-1 season.
UCLA dominated Sunday’s national championship game, leading for all but one minute. The Bruins were able to get a double-digit lead in the final seconds of the first quarter, with guard Kiki Rice’s 3-pointer giving them a 21-10 lead. That was the last time the Gamecocks were within striking distance as well, with the Bruins leading by at least 10 points for the entirety of the final three quarters.
After a relatively even second quarter, UCLA was really able to run away in the third. The Bruins turned their 36-23 halftime lead into a 61-32 advantage by the end of the third quarter. Guard Gabriela Jaquez was seemingly all over the place in that quarter, making hustle plays on both ends to allow the fourth quarter to be a formality. She had seven of her game-high 21 points in the frame, adding 10 rebounds and five assists in Sunday’s win.
UCLA star center and First-Team All-American Lauren Betts also pitched a strong effort in her final college game. She scored 14 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in the victory, further etching her spot as one of the program’s best players ever after transferring from Stanford in 2023.
Betts, Jaquez, Rice, guard Gianna Kneepkens and guard Charlisse Leger-Walker headlined a loaded UCLA senior class that helped bring the program some of the best years it’s ever had. The Bruins made their first Final Four in the women’s NCAA basketball tournament in 2025 and reached the Sweet 16 in each of the last four seasons, something they had only done once before. All five of those aforementioned players are projected to be picked early in the 2026 WNBA Draft later in April.
The title is also the crowning achievement in UCLA women’s basketball head coach Cori Close’s career. Now in her 15th season, Close has made UCLA one of the sport’s powerhouses, posting a 358-144 record in her time with the program.
While Sunday marks UCLA’s first NCAA title in women’s baseball, it won the AIAW championship in 1978. That tournament was before the start of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament in 1982.
UCLA’s title also marks the first women’s basketball championship for the Big Ten in 27 years. Purdue was the last Big Ten team to win the national championship in women’s college basketball, doing so in 1999.
With UCLA’s win on Sunday, the Big Ten can also do something that no conference has done in nearly two decades. If Michigan beats UConn in the men’s basketball national championship game on Sunday night, the Big Ten will be the first conference to win the football championship plus the men’s and women’s basketball championships in the same academic year since the SEC did so in 2006-07.
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