2026 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament: How to Watch and Game Thread - #1 Seed UCLA Bruins vs. #16 Seed CBU Lancers

The Bruins open the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament against the WAC Champion Lancers.

Head coach Cori Close addresses the UCLA women’s basketball team at the start of yesterday’s practice. (Photo Credit: Joe Piechowski)

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This evening, the UCLA women’s basketball team begins their Quest for 126 with a game against the 16 seed California Baptist Lancers. Tip-off is set for 7 pm PT and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.

When UCLA was named the number two overall seed, there was a lot of talk that the Bruins might have gotten screwed because they played a much tougher schedule than UConn. That may be the case, but CBU might have gotten screwed worse.

The Lancers are a team which has won 17 of their last 20 games, yet somehow they ended up as the 63rd overall seed. It is clearly a case of being penalized for a bad month of December which saw them go 0-6 with losses to Boise State, UC Irvine, UCSD, Denver, and Nebraska. That loss to the Cornhuskers by 21 points was the worst of those losses, at least on the scoreboard.

Generally, the Selection Committee takes more recent play into account. So, you could make an argument that the Lancers should have been seeded higher than 63rd.

The Lancers are led by Jarrod Olson. Olson is in his 14th year at the helm for CBU. He oversaw the program’s transition from Division II to Division I and he’s compiled a .717 winning percentage at the school. Two seasons ago, they were a 15 seed when they came to Pauley in the program’s first NCAA tournament appearance. UCLA won that game, 84-55.

California Baptist Lancers’ Starting Five

Olson will start a lineup with three guards and two forwards.

The Lancers are led by freshman guard Lauren Olsen, who earned WAC Freshman of the Year honors for her play this season. She leads CBU in scoring with an average of 15.1 ppg. Like so many of her teammates, Olsen likes shooting from three-point range. She has a 37.1% three-point percentage and she has taken and made more threes than any other player on the team. She is not related to the Lancers’ head coach.

The second guard in CBU’s starting lineup will be Filipa Barros. The redshirt junior from Portugal averages 11.2 ppg. While Barros leads the team in assists with 158, her most impressive stat might be her team-leading 10.0 rpg average. Not only is Barros a guard, but she’s also just 5’9” tall. That seems to imply that she is especially aggressive in grabbing rebounds. Despite that aggression, she has only fouled out once this season.

CBU’s third guard is Shawnee Nordstrom. The sophomore from New Zealand is averaging 8.8 ppg, making her the only Lancer starter not averaging in double figures.

Starting forward Emma Johansson is second on the team in rebounds with an average of 6.7 rpg. At 6’3” tall, she will probably be the tallest player to play tonight for CBU. Only reserve forward Paula Haw is taller than Johansson, but Haw has only played in nine games this year. So, she probably won’t see much, if any, time tonight. Johansson is third on the team in scoring with an average of 10.5 ppg and she leads CBU with 91 blocks. She is the Lancers’ worst three-point shooter among the starters with just a 26.4% three-point percentage.

The final starter will be senior forward Grace Schmidt. At 6’0”, she will be the only starter other than Johansson who is at least six feet tall. She’s third on the team in rebounds with an average of 5.3 rpg and she averages 10.0 ppg. Schmidt is the one starter who really doesn’t shoot threes. She has tried just eight all season and made just one.

The first two players off the bench will likely be junior guards Khloe Lemon and Sofia Alonso. Like Schmidt, Lemon averages 10.0 ppg. Her 30.5% three-point percentage makes her one of the team’s better three-point shooters. She’s tried and made more threes than any player on the team except for Olsen and Barros, despite playing primarily in a reserve role. Alonso doesn’t score much. She is averaging just 2.3 ppg for the season, and only scored three points in the WAC Championship game despite playing 25 minutes. Her 58 assists is the most of any of the Lancer reserves.

The final reserve likely to see significant time off the bench tonight is grad transfer Chance Bucher. She averages 5.9 ppg which is better than most of the Lancer reserves. Additionally, she will probably be playing in her final collegiate game.

Outlook

When trying to compare the Bruins and the Lancers, it’s natural to look at common opponents. They had three common opponents this season—Long Beach State, UCSB, and Nebraska. UCLA easily defeated all three, and in the case of LBSU, the Bruins won by a whopping 62 points, 106-44. The Lancers beat Long Beach by 23 at the Walter Pyramid. Meanwhile, CBU lost to UCSB by 25 and Nebraska by 21. The Bruins beat the Gauchos by 37 and the Huskers by 22.

Now, the transitive property does not apply to basketball, but this all points to a probable very big win for the Bruins tonight. The real question is: How big will UCLA’s win tonight be?

Considering the common opponents and the fact that the Bruins utterly demolished Iowa, one of the tournament’s number two seeds in the Big Ten Tournament championship game, by 51 points, it seems likely that tonight’s game could very well by another 50+ point win for UCLA.

To be fair, however, we also need to consider that the Lancers’ fans really showed up the last time they played the Bruins. So, could it end up being a much smaller margin of victory? Absolutely. Do I think it will be much smaller? Absolutely not.

I think this team is on a mission. In her press conference yesterday, UCLA head coach Cori Close spoke about how they learned from last year’s Final Four run and how she spoke with some of the other Final Four coaches to learn how the Bruins are going to handle things differently this year. She said::

“I actually called some other Final Four coaches and said, ‘Hey, this is what I’m thinking as I adjust and want to learn from everything I can, what do you think?’ And so I tried to seek their wise counsel. I think we have a much tighter plan and I think it has a lot to do with we’re going to be a little more insulary and even how we travel to different pieces but honestly if we don’t do a good job in today’s practice and doing that, it doesn’t really matter.”

So, Coach Close and her staff have been preparing for this tournament run for almost a year. They began working to prepare again almost as soon as last season was over when they had the time to prepare for now. Whenever UCLA’s tournament run comes to an end, no one will be able to say that they failed to prepare. This team and coaching staff is prepared to shine over the next few weeks. Now, it’s just about going out each day and continuing to execute.

I don’t know if they will win tonight by 25 or less, or by 50 or more. If I had to guess, I’d say it will probably be closer to 50 than 25 even though Cal Baptist seems to be a program on the rise.

Listen to the Game With TMB

Tonight’s game will be broadcast on ESPN with Eric Frede and Christy Thomaskutty on the call. Of course, you can choose to listen to Dave Marcus call the game for the Bruins by listening online. To do that, just right-click on the link below so that you can open up another tab and have it going while you chat in the comments below. Listen to today’s game online.

This is your UCLA women’s basketball vs. CBU Lancers NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament First Round game thread. Here’s how to watch, listen and stream tonight’s game:

2026 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament First Round

• Opponents: #1 Seed UCLA Women’s Basketball (31-1) vs. #16 seed California Baptist Lancers (23-10)

• Series Record: UCLA leads, 1-0

• When: 7:00 pm PT, Saturday, March 21, 2026

• Where: Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles, CA

• TV: ESPN with Eric Frede and Christy Thomaskutty

• Live Stream: WatchESPN.com and the ESPN app

• Radio/Audio:
  Satellite Radio: SiriusXM Ch. 81 (UCLA Call)

  Online: uclabruins.com with Dave Marcus

• Live Stats: NCAA.com

• Tournament Notes:
  UCLA

  CBU
  

Go Bruins!!!

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