{"id":700672,"date":"2026-04-06T02:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T02:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/700672\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T02:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T02:44:18","slug":"uclas-ncaa-title-puts-west-coast-womens-basketball-back-on-top-san-gabriel-valley-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/700672\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA\u2019s NCAA title puts West Coast women\u2019s basketball back on top \u2013 San Gabriel Valley Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 Lauren Betts had her NCAA championship hat pulled down low, but it couldn\u2019t hide the confidence \u2014 garnished with some smugness \u2014 as she addressed reporters during one of the many postgame media obligations on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

The attitude was justified. The UCLA women\u2019s basketball team had won its first-ever NCAA title, bringing down powerhouse South Carolina 79-51 to put West Coast college basketball on the biggest stage once again.<\/p>\n

If anyone doubted the region\u2019s prominence in the sport, Betts says the naysayers have been silenced.<\/p>\n

\u201cL.A. basketball, man,\u201d Betts, the Bruins\u2019 All-American center, said. \u201cEveryone needs to be on the lookout because, I mean \u2014 now, you really can\u2019t say anything. Like, we just won the national championship, so I guess we\u2019re doing something right. That\u2019s all I have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bruins are just the third team from the West Coast to win an NCAA championship after Stanford and USC. The Cardinal won it all in 2021 and 1992, and USC did so in 1983 and 1984.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an easy feat for a California team to pull off, considering the state has only hosted the NCAA women\u2019s finals just three times since their inception in 1982. Having all rounds of this year\u2019s tournament in the Pacific time zone is a rare luxury for westerly teams.<\/p>\n

UCLA trekked across the country throughout its Big Ten season, but the postseason was more local. The opening two tournament rounds were at UCLA, the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight were in Sacramento, then the Final Four and finals were in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that that is a really good thing for us,\u201d senior guard Charlisse Leger-Walker said prior to leaving for Arizona. \u201cWe\u2019re just really trying to take advantage of the situation that we have. Because we have that, we can prep really well and there is no excuse for us going in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two valuable parts of UCLA\u2019s engine are homegrown, too \u2014 head coach Cori Close and senior forward Gabriela Jaquez.<\/a><\/p>\n

Milpitas, which is outside of San Jose, is Close\u2019s hometown. She was UC Santa Barbara\u2019s starting point guard for four years straight, and she became the first player in program history to record more than 1,000 points and 500 assists in a career.<\/p>\n

\"UCLAUCLA head coach Cori Close celebrates with the net after UCLA defeated South Carolina in the women\u2019s National Championship Final Four NCAA college basketball tournament game, Sunday, April 5, 2026, in Phoenix. (AP Photo\/Rick Scuteri)<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore she was a national champion, she was a Gaucho,\u201d the UC Santa Barbara women\u2019s basketball team said in an Instagram post. \u201cA full-circle moment and a championship legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaquez is the only recruit from California on the team, playing her whole high school career at Camarillo High School.<\/a> She won Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame female athlete of the year honors after averaging 34.2 points, 15.7 rebounds, 4.7 steals and 2.6 steals per game in her senior year.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople from the 805, they always come to the games at Pauley and tell me that I\u2019m representing them well,\u201d Jaquez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really does mean everything. It was really important for me to stay close to home because I love my family so much. But I think it also meant a lot to the local people that could watch me in person and support me. I want to say thank you to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaquez\u2019s brother, Jaime, who was in attendance for the championship game, also had a storied career at UCLA<\/a> and went on to be drafted 18th overall in the first round of the 2023 NBA Draft by the Miami Heat.<\/p>\n

As part of a family so entrenched in UCLA tradition, Jaquez has always thought Los Angeles college basketball was on top of the world. And as of Sunday evening, her opinion is valid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really realize the East Coast bias because I\u2019m from Southern California,\u201d Jaquez said. \u201cI think California is the best. I go to UCLA. I have so much pride. So, yeah, I don\u2019t really realize it, but I\u2019m just super thankful that we got this national championship for the whole entire school and for LA.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 Lauren Betts had her NCAA championship hat pulled down low, but it couldn\u2019t hide the confidence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,3474,217,325,231,772,1400,1544,66,5747,2239,57836],"class_list":{"0":"post-700672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-big-ten-conference","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-basketball","14":"tag-ncaa-tournament","15":"tag-ncaab","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-ucla","18":"tag-ucla-sports","19":"tag-ucla-womens-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116355470365793352","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}