No NCAA banners, not yet. But don’t get your nets twisted, it’s not like the UCLA women’s basketball program has been long-suffering. Or even kinda meh.
It’s been good and decent for a long while. You could even say the Bruins have had something brewin’. Simmering, low-key, before bringing it to a full boil this season, when they’ve reached the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four for the first time in program history.
UCLA (34-2) will face perennial power UConn (35-3) in a national semifinal game Friday night in Tampa, Florida. Win and the Bruins will have an opportunity to play for their second national title in women’s hoops – following their pre-NCAA Intercollegiate Athletics for Women’s title in 1978.
Believe that the players who set the table for this season’s breakthrough are delighting in their program’s achievements. Taking pride, too. As well they should.
I asked Maylana Martin – one of my favorite Pac-10 Conference players of the late-1990s – what she made of these Bruins, whose season of firsts included the nation’s No. 1 ranking and No. 1 overall seed.
She texted back: “As a former UCLA women’s basketball player, seeing this team make it to their first-ever [NCAA] Final Four is an incredibly emotional and proud moment.
“We’ve all dreamed of this, fought for this, and now this group has broken through that barrier. It’s not just about this year – it’s about every Bruin who has ever put on that jersey, who has worked to build this program into what it is today. This moment is for all of us.”
That includes, surely, the Ann Meyers and Denise Curry teams that won that 1978 title and got as far as the 1979 national semifinal. Cori Close, UCLA’s current coach, was sure to recognize those ladies this past weekend in Spokane, Washington, where the Bruins got past the round of eight round for the first time in three tries.
Feels right to recognize those who have come since, too. Hoopers who have helped UCLA win 61% of its games since 1982, when the NCAA brought women’s basketball under its umbrella.
Players whose teams have reached the NCAA Tournament 20 times, including nine times in Close’s 14-year tenure.
Players who have made their mark in the WNBA since its advent in 1997. Seventeen Bruins have reached the league, with three of them – Jordin Canada, Noelle Quinn and Michelle Greco – playing on championship teams (all in Seattle).
Several were high draft picks, including two-sport star Natalie Williams, who was selected No. 3 overall in 1999, and Martin, who went 10th in 2000. They were followed by Lisa Willis, picked sixth in 2006; Quinn, fourth in 2007; Canada, fifth in 2018 and Michaela Onyenwere, sixth in 2021, when she was WNBA Rookie of the Year.
Two Bruins are currently head coaches in the league: Quinn in Seattle, and Natalie Nakase at the wheel of the WNBA’s newest franchise, the Golden State Valkyries.
But, no, the UCLA women’s basketball program doesn’t have a single national championship to boast of at a school that has 124 of them, all told.
And it’s true, a women’s basketball banner is missing in Pauley Pavilion, where 45 hang belonging to the gymnastics, volleyball and men’s basketball teams.
“You don’t have to remind me,” associate coach Shannon Perry-LeBeauf said in the hallway outside of a jubilant locker room after UCLA beat LSU, 72-65, in the Elite Eight.
“It’s a responsibility; we always take pressure as a privilege,” she said. “So to be at a place like UCLA and to be able to add to that collection would be something meaningful, but it is something that keeps you motivated, pushing you every single day, because you’re surrounded by greatness. You want to carry your weight. You feel a sense of responsibility, like, we’ve got to put something [up] over here.”
Does it matter that for a long time, women’s college basketball was top-heavy, anything but anyone’s game? That in the 42 seasons an NCAA women’s basketball title was awarded, five teams have won 28 of them – and two of those teams, UConn (11) and Tennessee (eight) have 19?
And is it any coincidence that the Bruins’ door-knocking has gotten louder lately, as the game and its talent has evolved and is no longer so concentrated in a few distant locales friendly to women’s hoops?
We’ve had champions from five schools in the past six tournaments – though, yes, UConn is back, back again, and defending champion South Carolina has two of those titles and an opportunity to make it three in four years this weekend in Tampa.
Coach Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks are at the Final Four again as a No. 1 seed this week, their semifinal showdown with No. 1 Texas set before UCLA and UConn take the floor.
The Huskies are a No. 2 seed, but considered 8.5-point favorites by oddsmakers who still know and believe in UConn – and who might not yet be familiar with Lauren Betts’ game, or the fact that the Big Ten and Naismith Defensive Player of the Year and UCLA’s first AP First Team All-American has posted 19 double-doubles. Or that the past 10 of them have been served up with 20 or more points.
UConn, obviously, remains a destination for winners and stars. Paige Bueckers – the presumptive No. 1 pick in the forthcoming WNBA draft – is just the Huskies’ latest household name.
But the Bruins have been allowed to introduce themselves this season, and they’ve done an outstanding job – Betts was named the Most Outstanding Player in UCLA’s Spokane-1 Region and has been the subject of several most outstanding national profiles, too.
Kiki Rice arrived at UCLA as a Jordan Brand athlete and Gabriela Jaquez and Timea Gardiner let the world know they’re big shots against LSU, a game that drew an audience of 3.4 million on ESPN.
Most of UCLA’s increasingly recognizable cast are mostly members of the same 2022 high school class, starting with Rice, Jaquez and Londynn Jones – ESPN’s second, 19th and 22nd-rated players – whom Close brought in three years ago.
When she added Betts, Janiah Barker and Timea Gardiner – players who ranked first, third and sixth in that same class — through the transfer portal, UCLA had itself a national championship contender.
Nevermind that, no, that hasn’t ever been done. Yet.
“I came here to win and I came here to bring championships,” said Rice, who is so determined to complete the assignment that she and Jaquez called a players-only meeting after a stinging loss to USC in their regular-season finale at Pauley Pavilion.
That honest exchange between talented teammates steeled the Bruins for the road ahead, for taking down the Trojans in the Big Ten Tournament championship game. For this historic Final Four run and for history to be made in years to come.
I thought it was illuminating, hearing Rice speak in Spokane about winning not only for herself and her teammates, but also for the Bruins who will come after them – all of them part of the story of UCLA women’s basketball.
“The most important thing for us this season is the growth that we experienced and how much better we’ve gotten as a program,” she said. “That will continue to lay the groundwork and the standard going forward for many years.”
UCLA (34-2) VS. UCONN (35-3)
What: NCAA Tournament, Final Four
When: Friday, 6 p.m. PT
Where: Amalie Arena, Tampa, Fla.
TV: ESPN
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