UCLA roars past South Carolina, wins first national championship in program history
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
UCLA’s 11 national championships, 10 coming under the great John Wooden, are the most in men’s college basketball history.
On Easter Sunday, its women’s team was finally able to celebrate one of its own.
The Bruins put together a master class against fellow No. 1 seed South Carolina, cruising to a 79-51 victory at Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix for the first NCAA championship in the 52-year history of the program.
UCLA was pummeled by UConn 85-51 a season ago in the national semifinal in Tampa. This time was different. After outlasting Texas 51-44 on Friday for their first-ever championship game appearance, Cori Close’s team was barely challenged by South Carolina on Sunday.
The discussion about UCLA all weekend long at the Women’s Final Four surrounded its veteran players, namely seniors Lauren Betts, Gabriela Jaquez, and Kiki Rice. It was a group augmented by sixth-year player Charliesse Leger-Walker and offseason grad transfer Gianna Kneepkens.
And like they had so many times this season, they delivered.
All five players finished in double figures, led by Jaquez’s game-high 21 on 8-of-14 shooting. Betts, the Big Ten Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, had a double-double in her final collegiate game, scoring 14 points and adding 11 rebounds. Kneepkens had 15 points. Leger-Walker and Rice had 10 apiece.
South Carolina trailed UConn 26-24 at halftime during Friday’s national semifinal before coming back to beat the Huskies 62-48. There would be no such comeback in this one. The Gamecocks, looking for a third title in five seasons and their fourth of the Dawn Staley era, found themselves down 36-23 at the break against the Bruins.
It was all UCLA from there.
The Bruins outscored the Gamecocks 25-9 in the third quarter to take a 61-32 lead into the final stanza. They finished the afternoon shooting 43% from the floor, including 8-of-19 from three-point range. The Gamecocks, meanwhile, never found an offensive rhythm, shooting just 29% and going 2-of-15 from beyond the arc.
Joyce Edwards, a first-team All-SEC selection, had 11 rebounds but finished with just 8 points in 30 minutes. She was just 3-of-10 from the field. Tessa Johnson led the Gamecocks with 14. Agot Makeer scored 11 points off the bench in 23 minutes. No other South Carolina player finished in double digits.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
