And then there was one. In its first national championship game appearance, UCLA dominated South Carolina, 79–51. The Bruins were in control from start to finish, holding the Gamecocks to their lowest point total all season.
Powered by 21 points and 10 rebounds from Gabriela Jaquez as well as a double-double from star center Lauren Betts, the Bruins jumped out to an early lead over South Carolina and never looked back en route to the 28-point win. After losing in the biggest blowout in Final Four history last season, a 34-point drubbing from UConn, UCLA came back with its own display of pure dominance this time around.
“I think it starts with that perimeter pressure. Our guards did a really good job of just making it difficult for them,” Betts said. “I think once we get stops, they’re just not able to do what they want to do. I think that's what we want to get in transition, able to score.”
In the Elite Eight, the Bruins showed just how much more confident and experienced this team is compared to last year, Betts at the center of that development. In its Final Four win over Texas, UCLA showed that it can win ugly, something it didn’t have to do much before. And on Sunday, the Bruins just played a complete game from start to finish. They dominated on the boards, they shot 43% from the field and they got double digits in points from each starter.
It apparently felt as simple as it looked for Jaquez. “I had open shots and I made ’em,” Jaquez said. “I think that was just kind of what it was.”
It took Cori Close 15 years as UCLA’s head coach to reach this point. And with all five of her starters graduating, it will be another uphill climb to try to run it back next year. (“I did say to my mom, ‘The transfer portal just got easier,‘ ” Close said with a knowing smile after the game.) But for now, the coach is living in the moment and enjoying the reward for all the sacrifices she’s made over her coaching career.
“It’s 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’re experiencing right now, that it actually happens, that you’re in that position that you had planned for,” Close said.
“It’s just really with great humility. Man, we are so fortunate to be experiencing that. They earned every bit of it.”
Sports Illustrated was here throughout Sunday’s title game giving updates and analysis from Phoenix as the game unfolded.
Live updates from the women’s NCAA championship
More March Madness from Sports Illustrated
- After a Hard Reset, UCLA Decided to Win a National Championship on Its Own Terms
- ‘We Got Smacked’: South Carolina Couldn’t Do Anything Right in the National Championship
- Why Three UCLA Players Danced to Tate McRae After Winning National Championship
- Breaking Down the Matchups That Will Crown a Men’s Hoops Champion: Michigan vs. UConn
- Dan Hurley’s Wife Went to Great Lengths to Retrieve Coach’s Holy Beads for Final Four
This article was originally published on www.si.com as UCLA Dominates South Carolina to Win First National Championship.
