{"id":702178,"date":"2026-04-06T23:02:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/702178\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T23:02:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:02:41","slug":"heats-jaime-jaquez-jr-enjoys-title-with-sister-gabriela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/702178\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. enjoys title with sister, Gabriela"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI \u2014 Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/a> got back to Miami in the early hours on Monday morning. He spent the previous day in Phoenix, rooting for his sister, Gabriela, in the women\u2019s college basketball national title game.<\/p>\n

The younger Jaquez and her UCLA basketball team beat South Carolina on Sunday night,<\/a> securing the program\u2019s first national championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I won a championship,\u201d Jaquez said Monday after arriving back in South Florida around 5 a.m. \u201cSo I\u2019m still feeling that love, but understanding that my season\u2019s not over yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabriela Jaquez is a standout<\/a> in her own right. A guard for UCLA, she averaged 13.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.1 assists for the national champions. Jaquez notched a double-double in the title game, scoring 21 points and bringing in 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got to be No. 1, for sure,\u201d the Heat\u2019s Jaquez said when asked if it was his sister\u2019s best game. \u201cShe\u2019s had pretty incredible ones in high school. I\u2019ve seen her drop 50. But this one, just the determination and the will in this game was unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching from the stands, the Heat forward said he was confident in the Bruins. They went on to dominate South Carolina, winning by 28 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very confident,\u201d Jaquez said. \u201cI was talking to my sister. I was talking to some of the staff about the game plan. I was like, I need to get the inside, see what you guys are feeling. And everyone felt very confident about the game. So that gave me a lot of peace going into it, thinking that they had that.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Jaquez played for the UCLA men\u2019s team, he helped the Bruins reach the Final Four. But that UCLA team lost to Gonzaga, ending their title hopes. The younger Jaquez has what her brother could not secure: a national championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe definitely has all the bragging rights,\u201d Jaquez said, \u201cand there\u2019s nothing really I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaquez said he is proud that his family has helped the Bruins succeed in their time in college.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that\u2019s going to stand the test of time, at least for my sister,\u201d Jaquez said. \u201cThey can say whatever you want, but they can\u2019t take away a championship. And once you put that up into the rafters, it\u2019s going to hang there forever. I know both of the coaches there, they say legacy is overrated, but I think for her and our family, it definitely means a lot to be able to have an imprint on such a historic program and historic institution of UCLA.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. got back to Miami in the early hours on Monday morning.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,144,165,295,189,3881,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-702178","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-heat","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miamiheat","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116360258721330551","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702178","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=702178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}