SACRAMENTO — The team that can’t stop dancing won’t stop dancing. The top-seeded UCLA women’s basketball team beat Duke 70-58 in the Elite Eight. It wasn’t balletic, but beautiful. Sunday’s game at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento wasn’t a fun, free-flowing joy ride that so many of the Bruins’ wins have been this season. It was a…
SACRAMENTO — During the UCLA women’s basketball team’s dominant run all season, a question has lingered. When the moment comes, can the No. 1 Bruins actually deal with adversity? They answered on Sunday, storming back from their first double-digit deficit of the season to earn a 70-58 Elite Eight victory over No. 3 Duke and advance to…
SACRAMENTO — While the UCLA women’s basketball team has a veteran roster that was in this exact position a season ago, the Bruins have an entirely different vibe during their current postseason run. The No. 1-seed Bruins (34-1) will face No. 3-seed Duke (27-8) in the Elite Eight on Sunday for the chance to go back to…
SACRAMENTO — Cori Close’s candid remarks about the growing challenges of coaching in modern college athletics sparked a reaction nationwide among her peers. On Thursday, the UCLA women’s basketball coach was asked about the rapid changes shaping college sports ahead of her Bruins’ Sweet 16 matchup against Minnesota on Friday night. The No. 1-seeded Bruins (33-1) entered…
SACRAMENTO — The UCLA women’s basketball team hasn’t lost a game in 120 days. In that time, the Bruins have outscored opponents by a total of 806 points and just one other school — Connecticut — has gone without a loss during the same stretch. Yet somehow, the No. 1 seed in the Sacramento 2 region of…
Absolutely, this is the best team in UCLA women’s basketball history. Not the best team in the country this year, but truly a testament to teamwork and hard work and talent retention. Whether UCLA wins it all this season or not, the Bruins are the envy of teams everywhere, including Oklahoma State, whose season they…
On a day when No. 1 seeds dominated, UCLA wasn’t the exception. The top-seeded Bruins led wire-to-wire, beating No. 8-seed Oklahoma State 87-68 in the second round of the NCAA tournament on Monday night at Pauley Pavilion to advance to the Sweet 16. They will face No. 4-seed Minnesota on Friday in Sacramento. While UCLA…
With just over five minutes left in UCLA’s first-round win over California Baptist on Saturday, freshman Sienna Betts took a shot. She missed. She grabbed the rebound. She missed again. Then, she put it in the basket. On the bench, her older sister, Lauren Betts, was laughing. No. 1 seed UCLA was up big late,…
PHILADELPHIA — The question will remain unanswered. Would UCLA have beaten Connecticut if Tyler Bilodeau was healthy? That’s what will haunt the Bruins and their fans for the rest of March Madness. Even without their leading scorer the seventh-seeded Bruins battled valiantly, briefly taking the lead in the second half. But in the end they simply didn’t…
The adage goes, it doesn’t have to be pretty. But for the UCLA women’s basketball team, that’s not the philosophy. Coach Cori Close preaches thriving, not surviving, and that’s been evident in the Bruins’ lopsided victory margin all season. That’s why leading by 10 points at halftime against a No. 16 seed was likely alarming….
