UCLA Women's Basketball Earns #1 Seed in Region-2 and #2 Overall Seed in NCAA Women's Tournament
The Bruins will face the Cal Baptist Lancers at Pauley Pavilion in the First Round game on Saturday.
Like last year, the mood in the Mo Ostin Center was festive this afternoon as UCLA women’s basketball and the Champion of Westwood NIL Collective hosted a Selection Sunday watch party for the UCLA women’s basketball team.
The difference this year, however, came when the Selection Show began, the mood remained festive, but it was impossible to avoid the sense that the team may have felt a little slighted by the Selection Committee as the Committee chose UConn as the #1 overall seed.
But, all year long, this team has been on a mission, and now, they can go into the NCAA Tournament with a chip on their shoulder.
Overall, the Bruins had a much stronger schedule than the Huskies even if UConn is undefeated this season.
In response to the seeding, UCLA head coach Cori Close said, “We don’t care who we play or where we play.”
The Bruins will play the Cal Baptist Lancers on Saturday.
UCLA will then face the winner of the #8 seed Oklahoma State Cowboys vs. #9 seed Princeton Tigers in the second round. The four teams the Bruins could see in a potential Sweet 16 matchup include the #4 seed Minnesota Golden Gophers, whom the UCLA defeated 76-58 in Minneapolis back in January, the #5 seed Ole Miss Rebels, the #12 seed Gonzaga Bulldogs and the #13 seed Green Bay Phoenix.
Coach Close also thanked the fans in attendance for supporting the program. One thing she mentioned in the press conference after the seeding announcement is that, in her entire career, her teams have never been able to play an entire tournament in one time zone.
Well, that’s exactly what could happen this year. The Bruins will start off with two games at home. As long as they win them both, they will then travel to Sacramento for the Regional games. If the team gets back to the Final Four, those games will be played in Phoenix. Of course, Arizona doesn’t observe daylight saving time. So, the state is, while officially on Mountain Standard Time, ends up with the same time as the Pacific Time Zone now that daylight saving is in effect.
Besides UCLA and UConn, the other two #1 seeds are South Carolina and Texas.
Tickets for Saturday’s and Monday’s games at Pauley Pavilion go on sale tomorrow. It’s time to “Pack Pauley” and send this team to Sacramento in front of a large crowd of Bruins.
Go Bruins!!!
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As an aside, it was really nice to see new football coach Bob Chesney show up to today's event to support the women's basketball team.
I got to speak with him for a few minutes and he's the real deal--as down to earth in person as he comes across in the videos we've all seen on social media.
No wonder they went undefeated, UCONN didn't play one ranked team in the Big East.