UCLA claims national title for the first time in the NCAA era

PHOENIX - The entire season, UCLA has been defined by its depth. Any given Bruin on any given day could rise to the occasion and take over games. It won them a program-record 30 straight games and took them to the NCAA Championship on Sunday, where they won the fateful 31st game and did much more.

UCLA defeated South Carolina 79-51 to claim the first NCAA title in program history, joining the 1977-78 Bruins as the only two national champions ever produced by UCLA. 

The entire Bruin starting five scored in the double-digits, with senior forward Gabriela Jaquez leading the way with 21 points, 10 rebounds and five assists while shooting 8-14 from the field for her first double-double since the very first game of the season, doing it all in front of her brother Miami Heat forward and UCLA alumnus Jaime Jaquez Jr. 

"Like we've said all season, it doesn't matter who's night it is. We just want to win," Jaquez said. "I think that's what makes our team so special. That we're really hard to stop. Because if you try to take someone out, someone else is ready to step up."

Learning from the Tournament

Every lesson that the Bruins learned during the tournament, from the hot starts of Cal Baptist and Minnesota to the defense of Duke in the Elite Eight and the grudge match that was their game against Texas, was taken into account and adjusted for against South Carolina. 

UCLA jumped on the floor hard and fast and didn’t look back, outscoring the Gamecocks 21-10 in the first quarter and never turning the lead over once. 

Senior center Lauren Betts made the paint a hostile environment for South Carolina's layups and forced miss after miss while Betts and Jaquez raced in to grab rebounds and send the action back the other way. The Bruins out-rebounded the Gamecocks 49-37 and outshot them 43.5% to 29%.

Resurgence from the Guards

Even UCLA’s guards, who had been somewhat held down by Duke and Texas in the past, were getting active, especially seniors Kiki Rice and Gianna Kneepkens.

"We just had a mentality of going out there and and doing whatever it takes to win," Rice said, "And that's the mentality that we have on this team every single game, day in and day out."

Rice punctuated an 8-0 scoring run to end the first quarter with a buzzer-beating step back three. Rice had been contained before by Duke and Texas, but found her shot again when it mattered most, finishing the game with 10 points, six rebounds and five assists. 

Kneepkens too found her rhythm from three, finishing the game with 15 points while shooting 5-15 from the field and 3-7 from three.

There may have been no sequence that better summed up the synergy of the Bruins than a series of plays around the six-minute mark of the third, where Betts blocked a Gamecock layup attempt, Rice rebounded and threw down to Jaquez on the fast break, who finished with a layup to improve the Bruins to a 48-26 lead. 

Finishing in the Third

The Bruins shut the door in the third quarter, outscoring the Gamecocks 25-9. The fourth quarter was simply a formality and a chance for a changing of the guard from UCLA’s senior class to the next generation. 

As the seconds ticked down and Mortgage Matchup Center swelled with cheers from the Bruin faithful that travelled out, tears welled in head coach Cori Close's eyes. South Carolina dribbled out the ball. 

"I really did expect us to win today," Close said. "I thought about it several times.... I felt very peaceful all day. It wasn't about whether we got to the W or not. I wanted us to be able to play our best when our best was needed and we delivered on that."

Then the buzzer rang, gold confetti poured from the rafters and the Bruins sprinted into each other to embrace, even knocking down graduate guard Charlisse Leger-Walker in the process.

Then, for the very last time, they danced. This time as champions.