When the UCLA Bruins walked off the court following their 81-64 exhibition loss to Texas on Oct. 25, Timea Gardiner was beating herself up over her performance.
The fifth-year forward had managed only five points and two rebounds, while shooting 1-of-7 from the field against a Longhorns team expected to be amongst the best in the nation.
Bruins head coach Cori Close noticed Gardiner feeling down on herself, and she knew she had to put things into proper perspective.
“I said ‘Timea, there’s lots to grow, but three weeks ago, four weeks ago, you were just wanting to play. And now you’re playing at the highest levels and leading our team,’” Close told reporters during UCLA’s media day on Oct. 27. “I want her to just play out of a spirit of gratitude … you saw glimpses of just the kind of player that she is and what she brings to our team.”
Gardiner suffered a knee injury before the start of last season, sidelining her for the entirety of the Bruins’ national championship run. She received an extra year of eligibility due to the injury, and she returns as one of UCLA’s most experienced players.
After taking some time to digest the Texas performance, Gardiner understood what Close was trying to tell her as far as being able to properly quantify what it meant for her to be back on the court, doing what she loves.
”It was surreal. It’s been a long time, a really, really long time. I just have a lot of gratitude. A lot of gratitude for how far I’ve come and just how hard my process has been. It’s not been easy in the slightest,” Gardiner told The IX Sports. “It’s been great, and just taking it one day at a time and being present.”
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Gardiner comes into the 2026-27 season as the second-longest tenured player on the Bruins’ roster behind only Amanda Muse. She played a key role in UCLA’s run to the Final Four in 2025, and was a major piece of Oregon State’s Elite Eight run in 2024.
There was no question that Gardiner was going to be one of the Bruins’ primary sources of leadership. Even last season, when she was injured, she made an impact on the bench, in the locker room, at practice, however she could.
This season, her leadership role has shifted in the sense that sometimes it’s up to her to deliver hard messages to her teammates. Sometimes it involves uncomfortable conversations. But as someone whom Close depends on to gauge the pulse of the team, it’s a challenge she’s willing to meet head on.
“I think it’s just knowing when to say the hard things. Same thing with feeling the team, like what does the team need. What do I need to get out of my space and say the hard things,” Gardiner said. “And I’m still growing in that. I think it’s just finding the confidence in my voice. I think I’ve learned so much and I’ve given myself a lot of grace … there’s gonna be mistakes here and there, but it’s been a fun challenge.”
Gardiner isn’t alone in taking on that mantle for the Bruins. One of UCLA’s big transfer portal additions was KK Bransford, a veteran of multiple Sweet 16 runs and an Elite Eight appearance with Notre Dame.
Like Gardiner, Bransford was sidelined for an entire season in 2024-25 due to a knee injury. She’s found a kindred spirit in the former Fighting Irish forward, and the duo, who were teammates with Team USA as teenagers, have agreed to embrace the role of honest leaders as they end their college careers together.
“I think she has, just like I have, seen things from the sideline being hurt. Our experience that we have, we’ve gone through great teams, played with really great players, so she’s just giving as much as she can,” Bransford told reporters during UCLA’s media day. “I just love how willing she is to be honest and be blunt about it. That’s something that I kind of struggle with. And so be to able to learn from her and learn that side of things, I think has been great. We’ve been doing a really good job of navigating that.”
For Gardiner, she had a similar experience last year with former Bruin Charlisse Leger-Walker. An ACL injury kept Leger-Walker out for all of her first season at UCLA. She returned to solidify herself as one of the best point guards in the country and a sure-fire WNBA Draft pick.
The main thing that Gardiner was able to pick up was how to read the game on a different level. How to see it from a different perspective and then apply it once she got back on the court.
“I had the opportunity to learn from Char, and just watching Charlisse. Her vision is insane and how she commands the game,” Gardiner said. “So I think just kind of understanding the bigger picture kind of helped me to where now when I’m on the court, I kind of see and understand certain rotations or reads or certain things like that. That’s helped so much.”
During Gardiner’s last healthy season in 2024-25, she appeared in 36 games for the Bruins, including six starts, at a little over 18 minutes per game. She averaged 7.6 points and 3.4 rebounds while shooting 39.5% from the 3-point line.
She’s a unique player in that she can be effective in the paint while also spacing the floor with consistent 3-point shooting. Across her three college seasons thus far, she’s shot 39.1% from distance. In 2024-25, she took 35 shots in the painted area and converted on 65.7% of those attempts.
Gardiner will play a big role on the court, in addition to her leadership, and Close and the coaching staff want to the rest of the team to follow her lead on and off the court.
”Leading is the biggest thing, by example and by holding the standard. I think I kind of know, having been on two teams that have been very successful previously, I think that I kind of know what it takes to get back to that position,” Gardiner said. “I think they have a lot of expectation around that, and then just allowing the cards to fall where they may.”
One player who will see plenty of time on the court alongside Gardiner is sophomore center Sienna Betts. Close has opted to start the pair together during the Bruins’ two exhibition games against Cal and Texas.
Throughout the summer and in the early stages of building team chemistry, Betts has noticed the growth in Gardiner’s leadership. She even noticed it last year as the season progressed.
“She built her leadership while she wasn’t playing and she built a lot of trust with her teammates, and a lot of wisdom. We respect her so much. When she came back on the court, I wasn’t shocked by anything she did,” Betts told reporters during UCLA media day. “You could tell, she was a dog, even when she wasn’t playing. I just think she’s so fun to play with. She’s just developed, even from before when she was playing with my sister, and her now, I think she’s just such a developed three-four-five player, and just a great, great person.”
Gardiner and Betts bring contrasting styles of play to the lineup, which is why they make an ideal pairing on the court. If both are capable of playing up to expectations, the Bruins could have a sneaky good front-court this season.
Betts is more of a traditional big who plays close to the rim and back-to-the-basket. Gardiner is the floor spacer who draws opposing defenses away from the paint and makes sure the lane isn’t clogged when Betts is operating.
Gardiner admits that the initial pairing did not go as smoothly as they wanted, but they’ve been able to work out some of the kinks.
“I think we have very strong personalities, so initially, it was a little bit shaky. But I think that we both want to win so badly, and I think that playing with her and learning from her, she’s so funny and goofy but she’s also so competitive,” Gardiner said. “I think that we complement each other really well on the court. It’s just been really fun to play with her and just see the stuff she’s working on in practice come to fruition.”
With the regular season getting underway, one of the biggest challenges the Bruins face is managing expectations. They dealt with it last season amid their run to the national championship.
Although the majority of the roster is new, blocking the outside noise as far as the scrutiny that follows winning a title is going to be key to navigating the year. The coaching staff does a solid job in keeping the team grounded, but Gardiner assists with that as well. And so far, she’s confident in what she’s seen from her teammates in that regard.
”A lot of it is kind of knowing that what we have in these four walls is the most important thing. And I think already our team has done such a phenomenal job. We’re already so connected and we all love playing for and with each other,” Gardiner said. “I think that alone just kind of helps us be so focused on what we’re doing … that’s really the pivotal thing for us. And Coach Cori keeps reiterating it every single day so we keep hearing it and to an extent, we all believe it.”
