LOS ANGELES — If it hadn’t hit them yet, it certainly did now. The roar of the Pauley Pavilion crowd drowned out the marching band’s rendition of the UCLA fight song as the Bruins entered the arena one by one.
Starting with each member of the coaching staff and head coach Cori Close, the cheers of the assembled fans somehow grew louder as each name was introduced. By the time the final name was called, senior star Lauren Betts, the crowd was in a frenzy.
Tuesday night capped off what’s been a whirlwind for the Bruins following their national championship win on Sunday afternoon.
The week began the night of the championship game, as UCLA returned home to throngs of cheering fans. They were honored on court during the Los Angeles Lakers’ home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night, made a guest appearance on the the Jimmy Kimmel show the same night, and capped off the festivities with a championship celebration in front of the adoring fans who have cheered them for decades, some even as far back as the 1978 AIAW championship team.
But they weren’t done just yet. Immediately following the ceremony on campus, the Bruins hurried off the court and waded their way through L.A. traffic to get down to the Intuit Dome. They had another appearance to make at the Los Angeles Clippers’ home game against the Thunder.
In the moment, it’s hard to really soak up being national champions, but with all the scheduled appearances and getting to share it with their loyal fan base, it finally started to sink in for the Bruins.
”It has been incredibly fun, really gratifying to see what people are noticing. That has been really meaningful to me,” UCLA head coach Cori Close told reporters prior to Tuesday’s ceremony. “I didn’t have any idea what this might feel like. But the thing that has been really neat is that they’re talking about the character of our players. They’re talking about the way we went about our business. And that has really been most meaningful.”
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And things aren’t going to slow down anytime soon for the UCLA seniors at least. On Thursday morning, Betts and Kiki Rice were scheduled to make an appearance at a local Raising Canes. And they’ll barely have time to breathe before the next phase of their lives begins.
The WNBA Draft is on Monday, and Betts, Rice, Gabriela Jaquez, Gianna Kneepkens and Angela Dugalic have all received invites to attend the live event in New York City. As Jaquez described it, the past few days have been nothing but “go-go-go,” from one event to the next, from one media session to the next.
“I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time to even think about it,” Jaquez told reporters before the ceremony. “I did in the moment because it was just so emotional for me, but then right after we won, it was like, ‘we need you for an interview.’ So I couldn’t even process the whole thing.”
To add to their plates, it’s not just simply the WNBA Draft the departing seniors are walking into next week. The league recently ratified a historic CBA that will provide the newcomers with a financial boost among other things.
The state of women’s basketball overall is in a growing place with increasing popularity and investment. For Rice, she excited to be stepping into an era of increased opportunity.
“It just speaks to the attention, the quality of play, really everything that indicates that women’s basketball is an incredible product. One we’re investing in and one we’re supporting,” Rice told The IX Sports. “It speaks to the growth that’s going to happen over the next few years.”
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But back home, the impact of this championship run is going to be felt for quite some time. Not only is it UCLA’s first national title in the NCAA era, it’s also the first L.A. women’s basketball title since the Los Angeles Sparks in 2016. It’s the first basketball title since the Lakers in 2020.
When Close got up to the mic during the ceremony, she recalled that when she was first hired, she was told that getting people in the city to care about women’s basketball was too daunting of a task.
“There was just a sense that it’s just too big a market,” Close said. “You’ll always be dwarfed by the Lakers, the Dodgers and so on and so forth.”
Close’s recollection was met with a scattering of boos from the crowd, that turned into raucous cheers as she delivered one of her most powerful lines of the night.
”Let me tell you,” Close began. “L.A. cares about women’s basketball now.”
