BREAKING: How UCLA won its first NCAA women’s basketball title

PHOENIX — Welcome to a special live edition of Basketball Insider, presented by The BIG EAST Conference. UCLA is your 2025-26 NCAA women’s basketball champion, defeating South Carolina, 79-51. Here’s how it happened.

(Editor’s note: now updated with postgame quotes.)

Lauren Betts exploded off the bench on intros, pumping her arms left and right, locking in with her hands on her hips as her teammates join her. She surveyed the crowd, then gathered all of her team into the dance huddle that serves as prep no less than the starters hugging and giving each other final instructions. A meaningful nod to Charlisse Leger-Walker as the two walked to the center circle — this UCLA Bruins team was ready.

“Today was just a fantastic display of our resilience,” Kiki Rice said from the podium following the game. “The intensity that we came out with, just our will to win, and we we knew we had a feeling like this was our time. This is our year.”

The Bruins have emphasized wanting fast starts in this Final Four, and for the second straight game, they grabbed the mantle of immediate aggressor. First possession, Betts got great position, better than any possession in the Texas game, and scored an easy layup. Madina Okot tried everything, but could not move her. Before the game was even three minutes old, Maryam Dauda replaced her. Agot Makeer soon follows, reinforcements, double teams, Dawn Staley throwing everything at the Betts problem.

Early action, UCLA was faster to everything. The Gamecocks managed to box out Betts, only to see Gabriela Jacquez follow a UCLA miss with an offensive board and finish. Jacquez grabbed a defensive board and ran through the South Carolina defense, as unforgiveable as any error for a Dawn Staley team.

South Carolina found its equilibrium, but missed too many shots at the rim, while for UCLA, the offense missing from all four teams showed up wearing blue and gold, punctuated by a Kiki Rice three to give UCLA a 21-10 lead after one quarter. The Gamecocks shot 3-for-18 in the first quarter, and did not make up for its slow start in efficiency by crashing the boards as they did against Connecticut.

“The things we were doing probably worked for other teams, but other teams didn’t have a 6’7,” Staley said after the game. “You have to navigate differently. You can’t go in there thinking you can score over her or through her, so sometimes you have to go in there and draw and kick, maybe draw and kick another time… The things we built our success on weren’t happening for us tonight. And UCLA made us pay for it.”

By the second quarter, UCLA’s offense was flowing freely enough the Close could call for Betts to exit the lane and open up paint passing for Angela Dugalić finishes, drives for Gianna Kneepkens. The Gamecocks generated better shots but finishes were scarce, and by the 7-minute mark of the second quarter, UCLA extended its lead to 30-15.

A portrait of the first half in two possessions — Ta’Niya Latson drove into the lane on a fastbreak, took a pull-up eight-footer she makes in her sleep and missed it. UCLA countered with flowing ball movement, eventually finding Betts top of the key, and she buried it from 20 feet out.

But South Carolina found a way to turn the game into a more familiar terrain, Staley deploying the press to maximum effect to disrupt UCLA’s flow. A turnover, then another quickly followed, a live-ball variety which finished with Latson driving to the basket and getting her first finish, drawing a foul and leading to a UCLA timeout with 2:48 to go in the half.

Out of that break, UCLA regained its offensive flow, tirelessly focused on making the extra pass, and faster to the ball on misses. By halftime, the score stood at 36-23 and UCLA has a 29-17 rebounding advantage.

“Yeah, every 50/50 ball went their way,” Latson said afterwards. “Every rebound, they got second, third and fourth chance points. We didn’t do the little things, we didn’t do the intangibles. That’s something that Coach talks about a lot. When you’re on this stage, you need to have that, and they did.”

The first possession of UCLA’s second half mirrored the first — Betts getting position right by the hoop and finishing. Okot, struggling to defend, gave way to Makeer, which opened the door for Jacquez to keep crashing the offensive boards. Betts doubles would force her to pass out of it, but UCLA kept the ball moving, and had plenty of firepower, spearheaded by Betts, to grab additional shots when the open threes missed.

Staley returned to the press, but this time UCLA was ready for it. South Carolina seemingly had no answer to anything UCLA threw at them in the halfcourt set, and were slow to even the defensive boards. A carom bounced on the floor before Jacquez picked it up, raced up the floor and found Kiki Rice for another fastbreak layup, swelling the lead to 48-26 and forcing a South Carolina timeout with 5:41 to go in the third.

“I think our guards did a really good job of just taking away their the point guard’s decision-making,” Betts said from the postgame podium.”And for me, my job is to just protect the rim. So whatever they told me to do today in the scout, whether it’s guard them out there or just protect the paint, I’m just gonna do what I’ve got to do.”

That was true of the entire team. UCLA seemed to feed on its own effort, getting faster to every loose ball, making the extra pass, while South Carolina could not make even its open shots. The Gamecocks shot 3-for-14 from the field in the third quarter, while UCLA made three three-pointers amid their eight field goals, and even when a Betts free throw rimmed out, South Carolina’s lane violation gave her another opportunity, which she buried. Ann Meyers Drysdale herself couldn’t have scripted it any better for the Bruins. After three quarters? 61-32, UCLA.

“For me, just going into the game doing whatever the team needed,” Jaquez said after the game. “And for me, just really focusing on defense and rebounding, that was a big part of our scouting report. And so I had open shots and I made them.”

UCLA, that player-led team, began the fourth quarter no differently — Betts on a chair holding court while Close allowed her to say her piece, then hopping in only once Betts nodded to her. But the results were what Betts and Close acknowledged they expected all along.

“I think when we find a way to play together and play selflessly, do what we do, no one can stop us,” Betts said. “You guys saw that.”

The Bruins never took their foot off the gas, extending the lead past 30 early in the final period and turning the final stretch into an extended coronation. And when Betts finally took her curtain call, up 76-43 with 3:43 to play, she hugged Close, then found every single player and coach for an embrace, sharing that moment. Jaquez followed with a made three, a scream to the heavens, and a celebration of her own as Close subbed her out.

All that was left was to dribble out the final few possessions. Everything UCLA had built this team for had been accomplished. Cori Close installed a John Wooden Pyramid of Success in her office when she took the UCLA job in 2011, lighting it as she reached new levels. She said after the game that the pyramid is now fully lit. And next fall, she’ll watch as her first banner gets raised to the rafters of Pauley Pavilion, next to Wooden’s ten.

“It’s just so rare in life, right?” Close said of her championship season. “That you can start a journey with a group of people and really envision something and then trying to reverse engineer a plan that will actually lead you to the point that we’re experiencing right now, and that it actually happens, and that you’re in that position that you had planned for.”

Cori Close and the Bruins: top of the pyramid.

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