{"id":856147,"date":"2026-04-06T02:04:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T02:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/856147\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T02:04:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T02:04:29","slug":"how-uclas-super-senior-class-led-by-lauren-betts-set-the-championship-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/856147\/","title":{"rendered":"How UCLA\u2019s super senior class, led by Lauren Betts, set the championship standard"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 When Michaela Onyenwere returned to UCLA as an assistant coach in the 2025 offseason, the two-time All-American noticed a shift.<\/p>\n

There was a different energy about the Bruins than when Onyenwere was part of the program from 2017 to 2021, a period that included one trip to the Elite Eight and another to the Sweet 16. The UCLA players were more professional. They were coming into the gym before scheduled workouts and practices. They were more locked in to their mental preparation and film work.<\/p>\n

The Bruins have a leadership council that acts as a go-between for the players and coaches every season. So many people wanted to participate before the 2025-26 season that the coaching staff had to turn them away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way this team has embraced the hard and the work ethic and showing up early, staying late, it\u2019s definitely shifted the culture in a great way,\u201d Onyenwere said.<\/p>\n

The UCLA assistant coach was easily able to identify the source of that change. For three years, Kiki Rice and Gabriela Jaquez had laid the foundation for a new Bruins era. They wanted to be in the gym all the time, and their work ethic was UCLA\u2019s baseline. When their cultural impact coalesced with a massive talent infusion through the transfer portal, the Bruins captured their first championship in the NCAA era by routing South Carolina 79-51 on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The seniors accounted for every point UCLA scored, starting with the two who had been Bruins for their entire college career. Rice\u2019s calming poise and Jaquez\u2019s relentless motor were the twin pillars of the team\u2019s win, as they have been for much of their four-year tenure.<\/p>\n

But the program was able to ascend to another level when 6-foot-7 transfer Lauren Betts arrived from Stanford as a genuine superstar who changed the way the Bruins were able to play and the way other teams had to defend them. The dreams that Rice and Jaquez had about bringing an NCAA championship to a program that hadn\u2019t won one required the right pieces, and Betts was the missing ingredient.<\/p>\n

After 15 seasons with UCLA, Cori Close can finally cut down the nets as an NCAA national champion \ud83d\udc4f pic.twitter.com\/RLa7OeOzJV<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 The Athletic (@TheAthletic) April 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

South Carolina has been the standard of women\u2019s basketball for the last decade, but the Gamecocks had no one who could contend with Betts. Her size in the paint, her physicality as a screener and a sealer, her passing out of doubles, her rim protection \u2014 the general aura of dominance she brought to the floor every night, especially in her last two seasons \u2014 all of it was too much for South Carolina to deal with.<\/p>\n

Madina Okot resorted to long jumpers to avoid Betts\u2019 contests. Joyce Edwards was similarly unwilling to get into the paint. Alicia Tournebize and Maryam Dauda hardly shot at all. The foursome was similarly ineffective keeping Betts from getting to her spots, unable to deter lobs over the top of post-ups in isolation.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe does so many things and she is such a generational talent that you\u2019re never going to see another Lauren Betts,\u201d UCLA guard Charlisse Leger-Walker said. \u201cThe way she can dominate a game and draw so much attention, it\u2019s unheard of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Championship teams don\u2019t generally win with a collection of good players. It\u2019s the great ones who push them over the top. The presence of Betts was what allowed every other UCLA player\u2019s talents to shine through.<\/p>\n

Angela Dugali\u0107 got to feast in the post, always enjoying a size advantage with the biggest player covering Betts, scoring 9 points and adding five rebounds and four assists. The newest Bruins \u2014 Leger-Walker and Gianna Kneepkens \u2014 found their lives so much simpler in Betts\u2019 orbit.<\/p>\n

Kneepkens, never really known as a defensive stopper in her time at Utah, was emboldened and challenged to be disruptive in opposing guards\u2019 air space with her length. She could be extra aggressive knowing Betts\u2019 shot-blocking was behind her. Leger-Walker no longer had to self-create jumpers and could shoot 3-pointers off the catch thanks to the extra defensive attention Betts commanded in the paint.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Betts) just makes playing basketball so easy,\u201d Dugali\u0107 said.<\/p>\n

Betts\u2019 talent raised UCLA\u2019s ceiling. Her vulnerability rallied her teammates around her. The Bruins consistently expressed how much they wanted to win for one another, following the challenge Close had given to her freshmen three years earlier: \u201cYou\u2019re on a great journey, but how do you bring someone with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

UCLA achieved its success because the seniors were able to work together and amplify one another. Rice could be quiet because Jaquez was louder. Jaquez could cut into open spaces because Kneepkens\u2019 shooting occupied defenses. Kneepkens had the energy to challenge herself on defense because Leger-Walker and Rice were creating shots.<\/p>\n

No one had to chase individual statistics. They believed in a culture of accountability and selflessness, set by Rice and Jaquez and lived out by everyone else who came in afterward.<\/p>\n

The challenge for the program comes now, when all six seniors leave for the WNBA \u2014 they\u2019ll be in training camp in two weeks \u2014 and the values have to live on through a new generation of Bruins.<\/p>\n

There won\u2019t be another senior class like this one, which changed what it meant to be a part of UCLA women\u2019s basketball. The title has been won, the standard has risen. The next Kiki Rice will pick a different program to bring to its first Final Four and championship game.<\/p>\n

Whatever happens in the locker room, the legacy of this senior class will always remain in the rafters. That is a tangible piece of culture that Close and the coaching staff can always savor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just so rare in life that you can start a journey with a group of people and really envision something, then trying to reverse engineer a plan that will actually lead you to the point that we\u2019re experiencing right now, that it actually happens,\u201d Close said. \u201cWe are so fortunate to be experiencing that.\u201d<\/p>\n