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For the first time in NCAA Tournament history, the UCLA Bruins are headed to the Final Four.
UCLA’s recent victory over LSU in the Elite Eight avenged a loss to the Tigers in last year’s tournament and is the Bruins’ latest accomplishment in what has been a banner season for the program. Whereas the Bruins failed to close things out against LSU in 2024, they came out on top Sunday’s rematch, building a lead with seven minutes remaining in the second quarter and never letting go—something UCLA head coach Cori Close pointed to as a sign of team-wide maturity.
“I think the game was won in the poise and the choice to go back to neutral, get ourselves refocused, and make the next right step,” Close told media, referencing the Bruins’ mentality at a point when LSU had trimmed a 14-point lead to just five. She went on to say that improving the team’s chemistry had been a season-long effort and that the Bruins had to “become a group that’s better together than the sums total of [their] parts.”
Indeed, UCLA is a scary enough team on paper. 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts is perhaps the most physically dominant back-to-the-basket post player in the country. Point guard Kiki Rice is a dynamic athlete who controls the transition game and has developed into a top-tier midrange scorer. Gabriela Jaquez and Angela Dugalić bring both size and outside shooting to their respective positions. Add in transfers Janiah Barker and Timea Gardiner—players who would start for the vast majority of teams in Division I but come off the bench for UCLA—and you have a deep, talented roster with no glaring weaknesses.
For most of the season, that talent has been more than enough. UCLA breezed through its first season in the Big Ten, winning the conference tournament and finishing 30-2 overall. Betts, in particular, has been spectacular, averaging 20 points, 9.6 rebounds and three blocks per game while shooting 64.9 percent from the field. She was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and earned All-American honors from the Associated Press and the USBWA.
Unlike in 2024, however, the Bruins have carried that regular-season success into the NCAA Tournament. They’re thriving in the high-pressure situations they would have previously wilted in, with their Elite Eight win showing that they can dig deep and win even when they’re not playing their best basketball—a strength typically displayed only by the country’s truly elite programs.
This is what Close wanted to see. She had described last year’s Bruins as “way too mechanical” in their approach and that while she wants a team that’s disciplined, she’d rather them play like “an art project, not a scientific formula.” In other words, UCLA needed to be able to adjust to the flow of a game and play with a mental fortitude that matched their individual strengths.
To be clear, the scientific side of things is still there. The Bruins excel in several key statistical categories, leading Division I in total rebounding rate (58.4 percent; Her Hoop Stats) and ranking eighth in assisted shot rate (68.6 percent). They score efficiently, take care of the basketball and defend at a high level, which any basketball coach will tell you is a winning formula.
Where UCLA has grown the most, though, is nowhere to be found on the stat sheet. Rather, it’s in how the Bruins carry themselves, and it was a common theme in the postgame media availability after their Elite Eight win: confidence.
Close stated that UCLA had “earned a different level of confidence” during the regular season. Betts expressed full confidence in her teammates to put in the necessary work when she’s on the bench. Jaquez said that she has confidence in herself to knock down open shots that could decide a game.
To put it simply, the Bruins are the No. 1 overall seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament, and they know it. They demolished first-round opponents Southern, won by double-digits against second- and third-round opponents Richmond and Ole Miss and, most recently, overcame a challenge in LSU that they were previously not ready for.
Entering their first-ever Final Four, the confidence that the Bruins now share should be at an all-time high.
