2026 NCAA Women's Final Four: How to Watch, Preview and Game Thread - #1 Seed UCLA Bruins vs. #1 Seed Texas Longhorns
The Bruins will look to avenge their only loss of the season when UCLA faces the Longhorns tonight in the second national semifinal game.
PHOENIX — Tonight, there are two women’s basketball games. The first game tips off at 4 pm PT when the UConn Huskies square off against the South Carolina Gamecocks. Then, at 6:30 pm PT (or about 25 minutes after the conclusion of Game 1), the UCLA Bruins will play the Texas Longhorns. Both games will be televised on ESPN and will be streamed on WatchESPN.com.
For the Bruins, it’s all about the joy of getting to play one more game with each other. At the same time, it’s about also about executing their game plan and the scout from the initial tip.
The Longhorns are coached by Vic Shaefer. Shaefer is a fierce competitor and this is his fourth Final Four appearance. He took Mississippi State to the title game twice, once in 2016-17 and again in 2017-18. Since taking the Texas job, his teams have made the Elite Eight three times and the Final Four now twice. Only once have the Longhorns bowed out in the Second Round under him. He has an .821 winning percentage at Texas. So, the Longhorns are just going to roll over for the Bruins.
Let’s look at Shaefer’s starting lineup.
Texas Longhorns’ Starting Five
Overall, Shaefer will likely start a lineup with three forwards and two guards. Texas will field a starting lineup which may be even better than the one they started against UCLA in November. To be sure, four of the five players who started against the Bruins will likely start tonight, but look out for one change.
In November, Shaefer started senior forward Taya Sidberry, but against Michigan on Monday, he had sophomore Justice Carlton on the floor instead. Against the Wolverines, Carlton put up 15 points and she was one of four Texas players with seven rebounds, but that seems like a bit of an outlier, statistically speaking. Overall, Carlton is averaging just 8.5 ppg and she is fourth on the team in reebounds with an average of 4.0 rpg.
Junior Madison Booker leads the Longhorns in scoring with an average of 19.3 ppg. To make matters worse, she is averaging 22.3 ppg so far in the tournament. She also leads the team in rebounds with an average of 6.7 rpg. She has also rebounded even better of late. She is grabbing 8.8 rpg in the tournament. She is also second on the team in both assists with 144 and steals with 85. While her 77 three-point attempts is also second on the team, she is making just 29.9% of them. So, she really isn’t a threat from outside.
The final starting forward is junior Breya Cunningham. She’s averaging just 7.9 ppg and she is third on the team in rebounds with an average of 5.6 rpg. The one thing UCLA will not have to worry about with Cunningham is the long-range shot. She hasn’t tried a three all season.
The Longhorns’ top guard is sophomore Jordan Lee. For the season, she’s averaging 13.3 ppg, and she’s averaging 14.5 ppg in the tournament so far. Lee’s 206 three-point tries is more than the next four players on the team combined, and she is making 34.5% of those tries.
The other starting guard will be graduate guard Rori Harmon. Harmon leads Texas in assists with 241. Given that is almost equal to her shot attempts, it’s almost a 50-50 chance she will pass instead of shoot, which is good considering that she is averaging just 8.4 ppg.
The Longhorn who may pose the most trouble for Lauren Betts is 6’6” senior center Kyla Oldacre. Of course, Oldacre is the Longhorn who stirred the pot a bit when she said she told Lauren Betts not to cry to the refs. Betts didn’t miss a beat and told her not to be pinching.
Oldacre will be the first player UCLA will face who will be nearly as tall as Betts. Despite starting just two games all season, Oldacre averages 10.4 ppg for Texas. She is second on the team in rebounds with an average of 6.2 rpg. Naturally, Oldacre leads Texas in blocks with 44 this season. Look for Oldacre to be the first one off the Longhorn bench.
While Shaefer played ten players against Michigan, two of them played two minutes or less. So, expect him to play a seven or eight woman rotation. Beyond Oldacre, I would expect to see Sidberry as well as Aaliyah Crump and Breana Preston. While neither played against UCLA last time, neither contributed much to the Longhorns’ win over the Wolverines
Outlook
Based on what the players and coaches were saying yesterday, UCLA seems to be locked in and they know what they have to do. Put simply, they need to come out strong from the start.
Most of the time this season, the Bruins have put opponents away in the first few minutes of the game.
Too many times this postseason, UCLA has started slowly. It happened against CBU and it happened again against Duke on Sunday. Of course, the Duke game was just the second time all season that the Bruins faced a deficit at halftime.
Of course, the other time came against Texas.
After starting slowly against CBU, the team responded by coming out strong against Oklahoma State and, literally, putting the game out of reach in the first few minutes. Once UCLA had a 4-0 lead, I knew that game was over.
I might not say that tonight if the Bruins jump out to a 4-0 lead, but it won’t take long if they come out strong enough to take a six- or an eight-point lead.
What absolutely cannot happen is what happened when they met Texas in November.
In that game, the Longhorns jumped out to a 20-10 lead by the end of the first quarter, and they double their lead in the second before heading into the locker room up, 45-25. While Lauren Betts played 37 minutes in the game, she was held to just eight points, and she suffered an injury to her left arm/shoulder from a collision with Madison Booker. While she returned to the game against the Longhorns, she ended missing the Duke game the next day.
With that on the macro level and Oldacre’s pinching on the micro level, Betts and the Bruins have a score to settle tonight, and I fully expect them to prove the November game was a fluke.
Listen to the Game With TMB
Tonight’s game will be broadcast on ESPN and streamed on WatchESPN.com with Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo, and Holly Rowe on the call. Of course, you can choose to listen to Dave Marcus call the game for the Bruins by listening online or you can opt for the Westwood One national feed on satellite radio. To watch or listen online, just right-click on the links so that you can open up another tab and have it going while you chat in the comments below.
This is your UCLA women’s basketball vs. Texas Longhorns NCAA Women’s Final Four game thread. Here’s how to watch, listen and stream tonight’s game:
NCAA Women’s Final Four National Semifinal
Opponents: #1 Seed UCLA Women’s Basketball (35-1) vs. #1 seed Texas Longhorns (35-3)
Series Record: Texas leads, 8-7
When: 6:30 pm PT, Friday, April 3, 2026
Where: Mortgage Matchup Center, Phoenix, AZ
TV: ESPN with Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo and Holly Rowe
Live Stream: WatchESPN.com and the ESPN app
Radio/Audio:
Satellite Radio: SiriusXM Ch. 84 with Ryan Radtke, Debbie Antonelli and Ros Gold-Onwude (Westwood One)
Online: uclabruins.com with Dave MarcusLive Stats: NCAA Game Center
Tournament Notes:
UCLA
Go Bruins!!! Beat Texas!!!
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A Texas player literally landed on Lauren Betts’s back with no foul call. Luckily, Betts had the wherewithal to kick the ball out to Kiki Rice, who finally made a positive impact by nailing a three-pointer. On the next possession, Leger-Walker made a great defensive play to force a steal and kick ahead to a streaking Jaquez for the layup. Suddenly the Bruins have some breathing room with 8:30 left.
Final thoughts: A lot of mistakes, no doubt, but competitive greatness is giving your best when your best is required of you, and UCLA certainly got that to start the fourth, building a lead that they would maintain all the way to the finish. Credit to the team for finding a way, but they’ll need to be cleaner on Sunday to put a banner up in the rafters.