PHOENIX — When it was over, Lauren Betts could laugh about it. That a game UCLA led by 13 points with 4:36 to play nearly got away, when it still remained an open question whether either the Bruins or their opponents, the Texas Longhorns, would break the 50-point barrier, was no longer a sore subject.
“Were they down in transition?” Betts said, pretending to struggle to recall. “Did we turn over the ball again? It’s fine,” she said, laughing, and it was, indeed, fine. A game that led Betts’ head coach, Cori Close, to say that “I want to grow the game so bad, I felt guilty walking off the floor because it was not pretty in any way, shape or form” ended with UCLA a 51-44 winner and headed to the national title game on Sunday against South Carolina.
It almost went another way. Vic Schaefer Texas teams never stop coming at you, and Madison Booker, stymied all night by missed shots, some altered by Betts and others seemingly off-target merely at the thought of Betts, had the ball with the Longhorns trailing by just 3, 47-44, and less than 30 seconds on the clock.
Booker took off for the basket and had the downhill momentum that defenses have failed to stop since the moment she stepped on campus in Austin, a star for Schaefer right away. But Betts stood in the way.
“The entire game, the coaches are just continuously telling me sprint back, sprint back, sprint back,” Betts said. “My job today was help in any way I can inside the paint. That’s my job consistently throughout the season. As soon as I saw her getting downhill, I’m like, ‘All right, please block this. Just don’t let her score.’ …
“She’s an amazing player. I was in a good position. I trust my work and my defense.”
Everybody trusts Betts. As Close pointed out, Texas’ entire game plan revolved around overplaying the UCLA guards to keep Betts from even getting touches inside. It worked well for most of the night. Betts finished with just 10 shot attempts, and many of those came on offensive rebounds.
But she made seven of them. On a night when the ball simply wasn’t going in for some of the best players in the country, Betts made sure to maximize her opportunities. On a night with 23 UCLA turnovers, Betts committed just one. It was a display of near perfection amid a highly imperfect game, matched up primarily against the relentlessly tough Kyla Oldacre, a true heavyweight battle complete with body blows all night.
“We could sit here all day and talk about Lauren’s impact. I’ll keep it short,” her teammate Gianna Kneepkens, who came to UCLA from Utah intent upon exorcising the ghosts of her own March heartbreaks, said following the game. “The amount she draws in on offense helps us all, all the guards, because you can go one-on-one, but I don’t know. That’s a choice if you want to make it. If they double, she’ll kick it out because she’s a great passer.”
This is not teammate hyperbole: Betts’ assist percentage is north of 20% for the second straight season, an elite level for a big. She had another three assists on Friday to go with the 11 rebounds and, of course, the three blocks.
“On defense I think she just is a threat inside,” Kneepkens continued. “When people get down there — at least in practice when I get down there, I don’t want to shoot layups. That’s just huge. Just her being there is a factor and makes you think about it.”
But then Kneepkens talked about something that mattered every bit as much in the final moments of Friday’s win.
“Another thing that I think maybe gets overlooked because it’s not talked about: Lauren’s leadership is huge for us,” Kneepkens said. “She’s willing to say hard things to us. In player-led teams, you need that. Lauren’s impact is huge on us.”
So it was what came after the block that stood out just as much. She grabbed the rebound, of course, and Booker fouled her immediately. The Bruins faithful who’d taken advantage of a Final Four finally back in their time zone rose to cheer. But Betts knew there was more work to be done and gathered what Close and company frequently refer to as a “player-led team” into an impromptu huddle at midcourt.
“When we connected as a team, [the message] was, again, reset,” Betts explained. “That’s one play. We got to win this game. The buzzer has not gone off yet. Just continuing to stay poised and neutral throughout the game.”
Betts and her teammates finished the job. Close subbed her out with seconds to go, and only then did she allow herself a series of three claps. There was a smile so broad on the face of this young woman who has gone through such depths and come out the other side stronger, just one game from a championship. She bounced through the handshake line, gave a big hug to her worthy sparring partner Oldacre and kept bringing her hands to her mouth in shock that she, Lauren Betts, would get to play for a championship.
It wasn’t a shock to anybody who’s watched her grow and develop as a player.
“People have asked me, ‘Do you think she’s mobile enough?'” Close said. “I’m like, ‘Well, question answered.’ Watch her move her feet. Watch her when we can switch with her.”
Just one possession had separated UCLA and Texas, but to Betts and those who rely on her, the moment didn’t seem particularly perilous because Betts was ready for it.
“When that play happened, I really have so much confidence that every time she is in a matchup, she’s going to find a way to alter, block, scare somebody from doing that,” Close said when it was over. “I just think she’s spectacular.”
No one at the Final Four on Friday night would argue.
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