PHOENIX \u2013 \u201cFirsts\u201d make for an easy narrative to rally around. Everyone understands the magnitude of the accomplishment when a program that has been around for 45 years wins a national championship game for the very first time. But women\u2019s basketball has a messy, nuanced history that doesn\u2019t conform to clean labels and simple narratives. And that shouldn\u2019t be a point against it. Because after digging in to learn the full history of women\u2019s basketball at UCLA, it becomes clear that the program\u2019s second national title is momentous for reasons that stretch far beyond the passage of time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heading into UCLA\u2019s 79-51 win over South Carolina in the NCAA national championship game, many correctly stated that UCLA\u2019s appearance would be its first in an NCAA title game. But NCAA is a crucial qualifier that\u2019s easy to overlook, especially for those unfamiliar with the NCAA\u2019s ever-evolving relationship with women\u2019s basketball. Keen observers of the record books will have noticed that the NCAA\u2019s accounting of women\u2019s basketball begins with the 1981-1982 season. However, that does not mark the beginning of collegiate women\u2019s basketball. In the decade prior, collegiate women\u2019s basketball was governed by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), an organization founded because the NCAA had expressed no interest in adding women\u2019s basketball to its roster of sports. It wasn\u2019t until the AIAW provided a proof of concept for the viability of the women\u2019s game that the NCAA decided to get involved.<\/a> Even then, their expressed interest was undercut by their active attempts to use the legal system to push back on Title IX, a law enacted in 1972 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex (among other protected characteristics) that would require athletic departments to offer equal opportunities to women.<\/p>\n Though the NCAA is the standard-bearer for collegiate athletics today and other tournaments with relatively unknown four-letter abbreviations in front of them are considered lesser, that was not the case in 1978 when UCLA won its first national championship under the AIAW banner. At that point in the history of collegiate women\u2019s basketball, the AIAW had already built the foundation and the NCAA was still on the sidelines, waiting to check into the game until after the AIAW had established a healthy lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n UCLA head coach Cori Close doesn\u2019t view the 1978 team\u2019s AIAW title as lesser. \u201cIt\u2019s not their fault that it was AIAW at that time,\u201d Close said while speaking to the media following their win against Texas on Friday night. \u201cThey won a national championship. They went to back-to-back Final Fours. We always want to acknowledge that.\u201d<\/p>\n Acknowledging history enables an understanding of the current moment. \u201cWe want to give credit to the people that have walked before us,\u201d forward Gabriela Jaquez<\/a> told reporters during the same press conference. \u201cThey have won championships.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n No matter who you ask, the current UCLA team or the 1978 team, they will tell you, a national title is a national title.\u00a0 \u201cAIAW was the governing body for women\u2019s athletics.\u201d That\u2019s the bottom line for Denise Curry, forward for the 1978 squad and the school\u2019s all-time leading scorer with 3,198 points. As she noted in an interview with The IX Basketball, there was no NCAA championship to be won in 1978, \u201cEvery women\u2019s team in the country, with the exception of NAIA, was playing AIAW, so it\u2019s no different.\u201d<\/p>\n Words spoken by the 1978 team still carry weight within the program. Close has welcomed their voices since the day she arrived in Westwood. \u201cI get texts from them all the time. There\u2019s nobody that supports the mission of our program [more], not just the growth of what you see on the court, but we do things a little differently, and they have been behind me every step of the way,\u201d Close told reporters on Friday, after several members of the 1978 squad were in attendance at the game. \u201cIt is really meaningful to have so many people from that particular team, that set such an important course for UCLA women\u2019s basketball to be so supportive of our women, and they feel that.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the game has changed dramatically since the late \u201870s, alums of the 1978 team still see throughlines connecting the current team to what they built. Ann Meyers<\/a> Drysdale, whose jersey hangs in the rafters of Pauley Pavilion alongside Curry\u2019s, led UCLA\u2019s last title team in assists, steals, and rebounds. In an interview with The IX Basketball, she recalled their offense involving a lot of \u201crunning, pushing the ball, and certainly a fast break style of game.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In her pre-game media availability on Saturday, UCLA\u2019s current center Lauren Betts<\/a> described their plan to create offense against a tough defense in South Carolina, \u201c[W]e like to push in transition and play really fast.\u201d<\/p>\n And though the 2026 squad may not average 96.2 points per game on offense, they present a similarly balanced approach to scoring. This year\u2019s team boasts four players averaging double-digits in scoring. In their win over South Carolina in the title game, five players scored at least ten points, with both Betts and Jaquez posting double-doubles. In the 1978 title game,<\/a> UCLA had four players in double digits, with Meyers Drysdale logging a double-double and center Heidi Nestor<\/a> coming just one rebound shy of a double-double herself. The 2026 team routed South Carolina 79-51. The 1978 team didn\u2019t win by a margin quite that wide, but they did earn a definitive 16-point victory over Maryland.<\/p>\n On the other side of the ball, the 1978 squad was \u201c[A]n aggressive team defensively,\u201d according to Meyers Drysdale, \u201cI always thought rebounding was a big, big part of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n What was the defensive gameplan for the 2026 squad heading into their final? \u201cIt\u2019s going to be about our aggressiveness,\u201d Betts told reporters on Saturday. \u201cDefensively limiting them to one shot and rebounding.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the similarities between the two teams, the experience of playing women\u2019s college basketball is vastly different in 2026 compared to 1978. After Title IX went into effect in 1972, Meyers Drysdale was the first women\u2019s basketball player to receive a full athletic scholarship. Now, due to recent changes in legislation and NCAA policy, players are not only eligible for scholarships, but they\u2019re also able to earn money using their name, image, and likeness and receive a revenue share from their schools.<\/p>\n While Meyers Drysdale remembers taking road trips in vans to the other California schools in the conference and driving back right after the game because there was no budget for a hotel, now UCLA is a member of the Big Ten with multiple trips to the midwest on the schedule that require not only hotels but chartered flights.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1978, the much smaller coaching staff (that didn\u2019t include an athletic trainer until Meyers Drysdale\u2019s sophomore year) worked out of a green trailer behind the gym. Early in Meyers Drysdale\u2019s career at UCLA their games were played on the JV court, but in 1978, her senior season, they finally got to play on the main floor at Pauley Pavilion. The 2026 team on the other hand, has its own practice facility and offices and the coaching staff includes both an athletic trainer and a dietician working under the team\u2019s Director of Women\u2019s Basketball Athletic Performance, as well as a mental skills coach, who regularly receives shout outs from players during media availabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n 2026 Transfer portal trackers<\/p>\n Then there are the differences within the game itself. The size of the players creates the most obvious contrast. The tallest players on the 1978 team were Curry and Nestor, both at 6\u2019 1\u201d. Meyers Drysdale stands 5\u2019 9\u201d, with guards Anita Ortega<\/a> and Dianne Frierson-Fowler at 5\u2019 8\u201d and 5\u2032 6\u201d, respectively. Meanwhile, Betts is 6\u2032 7\u201d, Jaquez and fellow guard Gianna Kneepkens<\/a> are 6\u2032 0\u201d, while guards Kiki Rice<\/a> and Charlisse Leger-Walker<\/a> are 5\u2032 11\u201d and 5\u2032 10\u201d, respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just that the players are bigger, members of the 1978 team went out of their way to praise the basketball IQ of this year\u2019s team. \u201cI am so impressed with their defense and how they talk to each other,\u201d Frierson-Fowler told The IX Basketball. \u201cThey seamlessly come in and out of the game and fit right in.\u201d Close likes to cycle through different rotations every few minutes, which has the potential to be challenging for players who struggle to internalize information and make adjustments. \u201cTo have them come in and out, where you can pull somebody out for two or three minutes and update them on something you notice,\u201d Frierson-Fowler continued, \u201cThat shows exceptional basketball intelligence from the players.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The circumstances surrounding the program have shifted dramatically as well. The 1978 title game was the first to be broadcast on television, but even then it was a clips package rather than a full-game broadcast. And when college careers came to an end, players in the late \u201870s were hoping to be drafted to the Women\u2019s Professional Basketball League, the first professional league for women that tipped off in 1978 and folded after just three seasons, due in large part to financial concerns. Now, the national championship game is a jewel event for the NCAA\u2019s broadcast partner. Then, mere weeks after the confetti falls, eligible players are drafted into the WNBA, a league nearing three decades of existence, currently in the process of expanding from 13 teams to 18 teams, and still celebrating its new Collective Bargaining Agreement that will guarantee players a minimum salary of $270,000.<\/p>\n But even when considering the vast differences in fanfare and opportunities to play professionally, Frierson-Fowler still sees an important parallel: \u201cBoth our team back in \u201878, and the team now in 2026 are at an exciting time in women\u2019s sports in general.\u201d<\/p>\n As the enthusiasm for women\u2019s sports continues to grow and the game evolves, the most crucial characteristics of championship-caliber teams will remain unchanged. One of those characteristics is preparation. Meyers Drysdale credits her team\u2019s aggressive mindset to the way head coach Billie Moore prepared them. Likewise, after the win on Sunday, Betts was asked when she knew UCLA had the title locked up. The reporter who posed the question clearly expected her to cite a momentum shifting play from sometime in the second half. Betts went back further. \u201cI feel like I felt it in our prep. I mean, I felt like yesterday I knew that we were going to win just because we were so focused. When you have a certain energy in practice, you wake up the next morning, you\u2019re like, We have done everything you can possibly do to be ready for a game. It\u2019s just like the confidence that you have.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond the preparation provided by the coaching staff, both teams emphasize how their coaches valued each player as an individual while also bringing them together as a cohesive unit. Betts told reporters on Saturday that what she\u2019ll remember most about playing for Close is how \u201cShe just knows what I\u2019m capable of and she believes in me so much and is so confident in me on days when I don\u2019t even believe in myself.\u201d For Close, there\u2019s an intentional effort to understand each individual on her roster, in part, to intentionally build a team that made sense together. When a reporter asked about the contributions of Kneepkens and Leger-Walker after their semifinal win on Friday, Close said of the decision to add the two transfer players to the roster, \u201cIt was really about the perfect fit to increase the productivity and efficiency of our collective puzzle.\u201d Without a deep understanding of each individual piece of the puzzle, Close would not have been able to correctly identify that perfect fit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Speaking of Moore\u2019s coaching style, Meyers Drysdale highlighted how, \u201cBillie was very good at understanding [which] players needed encouragement and [which] players needed to be pushed a little bit.\u201d But according to Meyers Drysdale, Moore had her own way of summarizing her individualized approach that was a bit more succinct: \u201cSome players you have to pat on the back. Other players you have to pat a little lower.\u201d<\/p>\n Frierson-Fowler credited the 1978 coaching staff with the aspect of their title run that she\u2019s most proud of: \u201cWe went from individuals who had been stellar athletes and then came together as a team.\u201d As Frierson-Fowler tells it, when a team is able to come together and make magic happen on the court, it starts with the coaching staff. Coaching was the primary source of their powers.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was not, however, the only source. \u201cIt took every single person,\u201d she continued, \u201cEach individual recognized what was required of them for team success.\u201d For Frierson-Fowler it often meant passing and setting screens instead of taking shots. But as she viewed it, everyone had a role. \u201cWe made it to the top because we were just as excited, or more excited, for our teammates than we were for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Curry was a freshman on the 1978 team, sharing the floor with several well-established upperclassmen. \u201cBut I ended up being the leading scorer on that team because nobody cared,\u201d she said. It didn\u2019t matter who got the bucket, as long as the ball went in the hoop.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnnie [Meyers Drysdale] and Anita [Ortega] and I all averaged 17, 18, 20 points.\u201d Curry continued. \u201cI mean, that\u2019s a lot, to have three players, scoring that many points a game. But it was because of the team we had. And again, nobody cared who got the credit as long as we did well as a team.\u201d For Curry, the connection they had on the court and the connection they maintain today are what defines the 1978 team.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI do it for my teammates; I don\u2019t do it for me.\u201d Betts told Holly Rowe during the trophy presentation that she maintains composure while getting knocked around in the post by believing in her teammates to come through for her and trusting that if she does her job, together they win.\u00a0<\/p>\n For this team the desire to win was never about individual accolades. \u201cI think just the joy we have and the love we have for each other has really motivated us this whole season\u201d Jaquez said in the post-game press conference, \u201cWe just want to do it for each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Later Jaquez added, \u201cI\u2019m just super, super proud of this whole group, everyone in the program, for always believing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n \u201cI never walked into a game that I thought that I was going to lose. I always believed we were going to win every game. And I believe that today, with UCLA, I don\u2019t believe that they\u2019re going to lose.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Meyers Drysdale said that on Saturday. On Sunday, the UCLA Bruins women\u2019s basketball team became national champions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Again.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2013 \u201cFirsts\u201d make for an easy narrative to rally around. Everyone understands the magnitude of the accomplishment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3723],"tags":[88060,87780,7,217,26754,88061,88062,68655,11890,231,772,1544,9017,5747],"class_list":{"0":"post-701427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-aiaw","9":"tag-ann-meyers-drysdale","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-college-basketball","12":"tag-cori-close","13":"tag-denise-curry","14":"tag-dianne-frierson-fowler","15":"tag-gabriela-jaquez","16":"tag-lauren-betts","17":"tag-ncaa","18":"tag-ncaa-basketball","19":"tag-ncaab","20":"tag-ncaaw","21":"tag-ucla"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116358241486107388","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701427","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=701427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}