Every team has an X factor. That is, a player who helps raise a team’s ceiling and elevates their chances for success. When that player does well, it’s usually a good sign for their team. For the UCLA Bruins, that player is Angela Dugalic.
It’s been a different look for Dugalic this year. After settling in to a starting role during the past two seasons with the Bruins, she’s been the team’s primary player off the bench.
She’s juggled taking on more of a leadership role off the court, while expanding her game and becoming very-well rounded on the court. And as the Bruins have their sights set on a national championship, there’s no denying her importance to the team.
“She’s a huge key for our team. I think she could be the X factor in each game in different ways,” UCLA head coach Cori Close said during her pre-tournament press conference. “She’s just got such a complete skill-set, and she’s a matchup nightmare for the other team. She’s an elite defender in multiple positions, so I think she’s an incredible key for our team.”
With Dugalic embracing the role of being able to make an impact off the bench, she took home the Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year honors. But a lot of it isn’t about starting or coming off the bench, it’s about rotations and minutes played. Dugalic is playing a little over 23 minutes per game, as per Sports Reference.
That’s just a few minutes shy of Lauren Betts’ 26.9, which is the least amount of minutes for UCLA’s starting five. Accepting that role also takes complete buy-in and selflessness in putting the team before anything else. For Dugalic, it’s simply doing whatever the team needs.
“Cori [Close] talked to me before the start of March Madness that my role is going to change every single game,” Dugalic told The IX Sports. “I am a really versatile player which is a really good thing because that’s how I help the team. Each day before a game, she’s going to tell me what my focus is going to be for the upcoming game. I like to use my size, so she’s going to really harp on that.”
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When Dugalic first joined the Bruins, she liked to get up 3-point shots. After missing the entire 2022-23 season due to injury, she came back firing away from distance, hoisting up a career-high 118 attempts from the 3-point line.
That number shrunk down to 92 attempts last season, and 76 attempts this season. That’s also coincided with 97 shot attempts at the rim this year, as per Synergy Sports, compared to the 67 she took from the same distance the year prior.
It’s all been part of the balancing act that Dugalic has sought to master as she takes advantage of her versatile offensive game.
“It goes game by game. Sometimes I can exploit the other team with my size in the post. Other times, because I can be that versatile player, I can still step out and shoot the three or drive,” Dugalic said. “It just gives me more of an opportunity, more freedom on the court and Cori trusts me enough to make those decisive decisions.”
Another area that Dugalic has grown has in has been her leadership. She originally transferred from Oregon, but she’s now one of the longest-tenured players on the team.
All season long, Close has preached leadership being a team concept where each player fosters some responsibility to be a leader in some way. For Dugalic, that’s included using her voice when she needs to, as well as knowing when to step back and let others have the floor. It’s kind of like a mirror image of her role on the court.
“I think we have a clear sense of the leaders of this team, like what people see on the court and how that affects us. I feel like I’m more the type of person where it’s the same thing as my versatility,” Dugalic said. “I’ll fill in any gaps there are. Where you need me, I’m there. If I need to be loud one day, I’ll be loud. If you don’t need me to be loud, someone else is being loud, I’ll pull back and support you from the sidelines.”
Although Dugalic has grown tremendously on the court, something she set out to do when transferring to UCLA, it’s been her overall identity that Close has been most impressed with.
Dugalic saw herself as little more than a basketball player when she joined the Bruins. But with a little help from Close, she’s formed an individual identity outside of the sport. An identity and personality that’s really shown amongst this UCLA group.
“I remember a conversation the very first year, and I was trying to talk to her about sort of separating her identity from performance and that she’s so much more than a basketball player. And she was like, ‘I want to be all in just being a basketball player, that’s what I came to do,’” Close recalled. “I give [assistant coach] Tasha Brown so much credit for this, because she’s really connected with her on the mental side of the game.
“What that looks like is you can be just as determined and competitive to master your craft and still surrender the outcome and know that you’re so much more than a basketball player. Those aren’t exclusive, they actually fuel each other … that is probably the No. 1 thing I’ve seen change in her time with us, is just how she approaches the game mentally and how she sees herself as an elite competitor, but so much more.”
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One of the ways in which Close and the staff have continued to support Dugalic is through the Serbian national team. Dugalic regularly competes with the national team during FIBA competitions, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2024 Paris Olympics.
It’s kind of gone hand-in-hand with Dugalic’s development at UCLA.
“Cori and the staff really preach about player development, they really practice what they preach,” Dugalic said. “I really appreciate that because every time I’m with the national team during summer workouts and everything, they are in constant communication with my national team just to see what I have to improve on … that’s the reason why I’ve gotten here today and the reason why I’ve progressed so much.”
When Dugalic plays with the Serbian national team, she’s going up against professionals. The competition is much more physical, she believes, than what she faces regularly in college.
A blessing and a curse, she calls it, as she feels the need to sometimes tone down the physicality when she’s playing with UCLA. That physicality is going to be needed, however, as UCLA advances farther in the tournament with sights set on a Final Four run.
But even with the winning and the expectations and however far UCLA makes it, Close’s early conversation still rings in Dugalic’s ear. As she embarks on the final NCAA Tournament of her college career, it’s her relationship with her teammates that she’s going to cherish the most.
“I think I’m just going to be really proud of myself … I’m not gonna remember the scores of the game, I’ll remember the ‘remember whens’ as Coach Cori likes calling it,” Dugalic said. “The memories that we’ve built. Even the games we’ve played in that are such big games and we’ve won, that’s all great and I’m really happy about that. But the stuff that I’m going to remember is in the locker room afterwards and how we celebrated, that means more to me.”
