INDIANAPOLIS — Somewhere out there, the Connecticut machine is on its eternal roll. Top-ranked again, unbeaten again, the team to beat in March again. But someone has to be the main challenger, right? Might it be the team that just pancaked the Big Ten, the Women of Westwood?
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The UCLA Bruins are 31-1. They’ve just swept their league, both season and tournament titles, finishing with the Sunday crescendo of a 96-45 dismantling of Iowa. They’re ranked No. 2. They have an All-American at center, six players nearly scoring in double figures and more hands-on experience than you could shake one of John Wooden’s old rolled-up UCLA game programs at. The starting five and top reserve, all seniors or grad students, have seen more than 21,000 minutes of college court time. The locker room is like walking into a master’s class on basketball.
“This group of girls that we have together is not normal,” star center Lauren Betts was saying over the weekend.
🏆 Back-To-Back Bruins 🏆@UCLAWBB wins the #B1GWBBT for the second year in a row, defeating Iowa 96-45. pic.twitter.com/lunfk9IKVU
— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) March 8, 2026
One other thing. On the NCAA NET rankings going into Sunday, UCLA had 17 Quad 1 wins, Connecticut eight. Would you, could you believe the Bruins seeded No. 1 in the entire NCAA bracket ahead of the Huskies?
Not an item on the conversation agenda for the UCLA coach.
“I put any energy towards that, I’m taking energy away from what it will actually take to get there,” Cori Close said. “I think our focus needs to be on the how. How do we play our best basketball in March? How do we learn from the previous year?”
Ah, the previous year. A story about that.
It was last April and the Bruins had just played in the Final Four for the first time in program history. Hard to believe, right? UCLA, the first? Anyway, unfortunately Connecticut was there to share the court. It ended 85-51. Close was at the microphone afterward trying to find something to take away from the wreckage.
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“Experience is such a powerful teacher, if you allow it to,” she said. Then she cited a quote picked up from Tony Bennett, whose Virginia men’s team once went losing to a No. 16 seed to winning the national championship in under 13 months. “I use it with our team all the time. Adversity, if used correctly, can buy you a ticket to a place that maybe you wouldn’t have gone otherwise.”
Now it’s a year later and the Bruins just spent a weekend in Indianapolis repeating as Big Ten tournament champion, winning their games by 18, 10 and 51 points. How’s that ticket purchase to someplace special going? They seem intent about it, returning to the Final Four and getting it right this time.
Take Friday, when they struggled early in the Big Ten quarterfinals — trailing in a conference game by double digits for the first time all season — but beat Washington by 18.
“I don’t really believe in survive and advance if you’re going to try to go win this thing,” said Close, who likes slow starts to games about as much as she likes root canal work. “It has to be thrive and advance. It has to be we’re playing our best basketball, we attack, we know who we are. It’s a mindset.
“We got to get that back really, really quick.”
Take Sunday’s thrashing of Iowa when Betts was UCLA’s sixth leading scorer. Five more Bruins were in double figures, too. The Bruins shot 63.5 percent and forced the Hawkeyes into two more turnovers than they had baskets — 19-17. UCLA had 40 field goals and 34 assists. That was the No. 9 team the Bruins were so efficiently flattening.
“When you have as many people that are as skilled as we do, you may not know who it’s going to be,” Close said. “But as long as no one cares about the who, I like the fact that it could be someone different every night, because every game is going to force you to adjust.”
We already know several things about UCLA.
We know these Bruins can relentlessly win. Their 25-game victory streak goes back to the day before Thanksgiving and an 11-point loss to Texas.
We know they can dominate. They tidal waved the Big Ten, going 21-0 against conference opponents with 19 victories by double digits. The average winning margin was 25.4, and in 840 Big Ten game minutes, UCLA was behind for just under 38 of them. In only three games did the Bruins ever trail by more than one possession. The league they were throttling was not a pastry tray. Seven Big Ten teams were in the top 19 in last week’s Associated Press rankings.
We know they positively gush veteran savvy. Consider these numbers: Gabriela Jaquez 139, Charlisse Leger-Walker and Kiki Rice 137, Gianna Kneepkens 136, Angela Dugalic 135 and Betts 127. Those are the college games each has played.
We know they are a force on both ends of the floor. Betts, the 6-7 queen of the paint, was not only Big Ten player of the year but also Big Ten defensive player of the year, a conference first. “My mentality going into every single game, it’s on the defensive end. I prioritize that the most,” she said. “How can I take away the best players? How can I rebound? That’s what comes first to me. Then points will come.
“I just think it’s having that selfless attitude that, yes, I’m going to end up getting the ball at some point, but if I can help on the defensive end, that’s how we’re going to get further in March, so…”
We even know they can dance. Betts, Leger-Walker and Jaquez joined the UCLA spirit squad for a dancing routine at a men’s game the other night. That got the crowd going, as if the poor visiting Nebraska Cornhuskers, on their way to losing by 20, didn’t already have enough problems.
Charlisse Leger-Walker, Lauren Betts, and Gabriela Jaquez of @UCLAWBB teamed up with the UCLA cheerleaders for a special halftime performance at the @UCLAMBB game tonight 💃 pic.twitter.com/X1CNuvjXql
— Big Ten Women’s Basketball (@B1Gwbball) March 4, 2026
What we don’t know yet, and won’t until the time comes, is if UCLA is indeed the cloud most likely to rain on UConn’s parade. That didn’t go so well last April. Should they meet again, the Bruins would not only need a good game plan but maybe a touch of amnesia.
But they have a lot of things going for them. Betts in the middle of everything, good balance, strong guard play led by Rice, who was named Most Outstanding Player of the Big Ten tournament and voices the team’s value of defense. “I think that’s the foundation and the backbone of our team.”
Get that chicken! 🐔
📺: CBS#GoBruins | @kiki_rice0 pic.twitter.com/lT3tyuN3SB
— UCLA Women’s Basketball (@UCLAWBB) March 8, 2026
Rice does not often draw Betts-level attention but it was Betts who said, “What I love most is she’s one of the most selfless people I’ve ever played with. She really could care less about all of the attention. She just wants to win games.”
With the 6-7 Betts tormenting inside defenses, UCLA usually owns the paint, outscoring opponents by 21 points a game. It was 44-16 against Iowa. They took the floor Sunday second in the nation in shooting, and assists, and rebounding margin, and assist-turnover ratio. And when it was over, since the music playing happened to be the same as for that dance to back home, they did an encore of the routine.
They also have a live wire of a coach who has produced winners for 15 years and is now pushing for a higher level. Close is thinking the memory of the 2025 run through the tournament — and the thud at the end — should help her team understand better how to do it again.
“Yeah, it really should, right?” she said. “I do think I feel in a much better position to lead through a long run in March. I think that they understand what it’s like as a player to have the target on their back and what that’s going to look like.
“That being said, nothing is promised. The only way you get to have a long run in March is to stay very present, focused, and to have a 1-0 mentality. I think it’s very mental at this point, and you’ve got to protect that.”
Close brought up something assistant coach Tasha Brown does for the team. “About every day almost we draw one circle and then we draw another one on the outside. We write on the outside the things that we’re just not going to let in our attention or our circle and the things out of our control. On the inside it’s things that we’re going to protect, that we’re going to focus on. You better live that. That can’t be just a little activity that we do. That’s got to be real if you expect to earn another day, another game, another practice.”
Where could it all lead? Maybe one day soon becoming a very large blip on Connecticut’s radar screen.
