UCLA Women's Basketball is Meeting the Moment

The Bruins are undefeated and sit at #2 in the nation, but they have championship aspirations in March still to achieve.

The UCLA women’s basketball team celebrating their victory over Southern Cal. (Photo credit: Lillie Yazdi/uclabruins.com)

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I’ve secretly been dreading writing this article. Not because I don’t want to talk about the UCLA women’s basketball team. Far from it.

I’m just afraid I’m going to jinx it.

Last April, I wrote about the team following the NCAA Tournament. At that time, I said that UCLA was essentially at a crossroads for the Cori Close era; super-senior Charisma Osbourne had announced she would be forgoing the WNBA draft for one final season with the Bruins, and the addition of Lauren Betts gave the Bruins their most talented roster under Close, but Close had yet to show she could get UCLA to perform at a consistently elite level, leaving the Bruins in a state of pretty good, but never good enough. I stated that, with the roster that was going to be in place for the coming season, UCLA was in win-now mode and needed to have an elite season.

So far, so good.

UCLA is currently undefeated at 12-0 and ranked #2 in the nation in the AP poll. They have nonconference wins over Florida State, Ohio State, and a huge win over traditional power UConn by double-digits. They just played in the biggest Crosstown Rivalry game in history, with both teams coming into the game ranked in the top-6 and undefeated, and in front of a sold-out Pauley Pavilion filled with 13,659 fans, the Bruins emerged victorious and grabbed a huge burst of momentum for the rest of the season.

There are a lot of different reasons that UCLA is playing at this level, but you have to start with Lauren Betts. The Stanford transfer has been a difference-maker for the Bruins, providing them with a true interior presence on both offense and defense. Offensively, Betts has been a consistent scoring threat around the paint, averaging a team-high 16.8 points per game while making an insane 74.1% of her shots. That interior scoring has helped out UCLA’s other shooters while providing a clear safety valve for the UCLA offense when things get bogged down, which was a common problem under Close in previous years. But it’s her defensive presence that is elevating these Bruins from really good to elite. UCLA has lacked a center that can shut things down on the interior, but this is where Betts has excelled. She is averaging 2.3 blocks per game and has seen her game rise to the big moments, with six blocks against Southern Cal and five against Ohio State among her recent outings. Her ability to clean things up on the interior has allowed the guards to play more aggressively, with their 9.1 steals per game representing the highest mark since 2020-2021. Those teams were anchored by Michaela Onyenwere and Lauryn Miller, two exceptional defenders but not the most imposing interior presences. With a true post like Betts, the UCLA defense has been at its peak in limiting points, putting up an opposing FG% of 33.9% that ranks 15th in the nation and a ridiculously good 33.5% on two-point shots, which is second in the nation. When teams shoot, Betts and the Bruins have done an excellent job of cleaning up the boards. Her rebounding in general has been excellent, with her 9.1 rebounds per game leading the team and helping to give UCLA a rebounding number that ranks 6th in the country.

The presence of Betts has allowed UCLA’s other excellent players to be more selective in their shots. Charisma Osbourne has been all-around excellent, being second on the team in points at 14.2 PPG, but those numbers are by far the lowest in her UCLA career since her freshman year. That said, she’s also posting a career-high in assists per game at 4.7, which is nearly one more assist per game above her previous career high. With Betts shouldering more of the scoring load, it has allowed Osbourne to be an all-around performer who can focus even more on the defensive end, such as against Southern Cal when she drew the assignment against freshman phenom JuJu Watkins, limiting her to 7/24 shooting from the field.

The super sophomores, who made big strides last season, have taken another leap this year. Guard Londynn Jones has nearly doubled her scoring output from a year ago, jumping from 8.6 PPG last season to 14.0 PPG this year, with major improvements in her three-point shooting numbers accounting for a lot of that improvement. Gabriela Jaquez has pretty much doubled all of her per-game stats across the board from a year ago, posting great numbers with 12.7 PPG, 6.4 RPG, and 1.9 APG. And Kiki Rice, who was the major driving force in her freshman year, has improved considerably as the engine of the UCLA offense, doubling her assist per game numbers from 3.0 last year to 6.2 this year while seeing a small increase in points to 13.4 PPG.

Maybe the most impressive part, or saddest, is that they’re doing all of this without the services of junior Emily Bessoir. The forward had emerged near the end of last year as a major offensive option from multiple levels, but she reinjured her right ACL playing for her home Germany in FIBA qualifiers. But the thrill of this season is that Bessoir would have just been an extra luxury rather than a pivotal missing piece thanks to the depth that exists with this Bruin squad.

It should be pointed out that there are some things to look out for under the surface that could prove to be troublesome in the future. Specifically, this team gives up too many three-point attempts. The 22.8 three-point attempts given up per game rank 313th in the country, and the 7.9 makes per game rank 340th. On some level, this is understandable; with an elite rim protector in the middle, opposing teams are more incentivized to shoot from outside. That said, those numbers represent a huge increase from previous seasons (no, seriously; just last year the Bruins only allowed 15.8 attempts per game, a number they’ve hovered around in previous seasons). On the flip side, I’m not sure how sustainable their three-point shooting will be going forward; this is a team that is shooting over 5% better from three than they did last year despite having most of the same players and even missing one of their better three-point shooters from a year ago. General year-to-year improvement can happen, but when you run down the list and see every player posting around 10% improvements across the board, you start to wonder if that number will come down as the opponent quality improves (though right now I guess this can just act as encouragement for people down on the shooting for the men’s team).

Which gets me to the last point. While the Bruins have the victory over Southern Cal already, they still have the meat of a vicious Pac-12 to get through, with games against Utah, Colorado, and a rematch with Southern Cal coming up in the next few weeks, and a trip to Maples Pavilion to face Stanford looming at the start of February. I don’t think it would be shocking to see this team drop a game at some point just due to the quality of the conference, but this is coach Cori Close’s best chance at winning the conference, and the Bruins have the talent to accomplish that goal. It’s now on Coach Close to get them across the finish line. The job she has done in assembling this roster and getting them to this point is encouraging, but it will mean nothing if they falter down the stretch, and will bring even more scrutiny to how she has done. After all, Andy Enfield is technically the most successful basketball coach in Southern Cal history, but no one would argue he is a great coach. This is a chance for Coach Close to prove the naysayers wrong.

(One last aside before I wrap up: trying to watch this team on television has been a chore and a half. It is an absolute crime that the matchup with Southern Cal, featuring two top-six programs and some of the brightest young stars in the sport, was relegated to the Pac-12 Network, while the tournament game with UConn was only broadcast through FloSports. I ended up watching the game through an Instagram Live being broadcast by 2024 five-star signee Kendall Dudley of all people, and while I love that she’s already traveling to games to support her future team, she shouldn’t have to be the one broadcasting games so that people can see this team play. As with many things, the move to the Big Ten can’t come soon enough.)

The UCLA Bruins are currently meeting the moment. Now to see if they can finish the story.

Go Bruins!

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