UCLA Shattered South Carolina 79-51 to Win Their First Women's NCAA Championship in 44 Years

UCLA crushed South Carolina 79-51 to win the first women's basketball national championship in school history. Here is the complete story of the 28-point blowout and the coach who learned from John Wooden.

On April 5, 2026, at the Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix, Arizona, the UCLA Bruins women's basketball team walked onto the court for the national championship game against South Carolina — the defending champions, the most dominant program in women's college basketball for the past decade, a team that had won three titles since 2017 and whose coach Dawn Staley had led one of the greatest sustained dynasties in the sport's history.

The final score was UCLA 79, South Carolina 51. A 28-point victory. By the third quarter, UCLA led by 29 points — the largest scoring margin of any quarter in women's championship game history, according to ESPN's broadcast. South Carolina, a program with a 36-4 record entering the game, shot 29% from the field against a UCLA team shooting 43%. It was South Carolina's worst shooting game of the season.

"I knew we were going to do it. Coming to UCLA we all set out for a goal, and I imagined this moment," said senior Gabriela Jaquez, who led all scorers with 21 points and 10 rebounds. Her brother Jaime — a guard for the NBA's Miami Heat and a former UCLA men's basketball star — watched from the stands. Lauren Betts, the projected high WNBA draft pick who was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, added 14 points and 11 rebounds. All five starters finished in double figures.

The story of how UCLA got here runs directly through a 15-year head coaching tenure, and through a relationship between a young assistant coach and a 83-year-old legend. Cori Close has been at UCLA since the 2011-12 season. But her connection to the program goes deeper than her coaching tenure.

When Close was 22 years old, she was mentored by UCLA men's basketball coaching legend John Wooden — the coach who won 10 national championships at the same school and who died in 2010 at age 99. Close visited him bi-weekly for years, adopting his "Pyramid of Success" — a philosophy built around character, competitive greatness, and personal integrity rather than trophies as primary goals. After the championship, she described the philosophy that produced it: "Coach Wooden always said, 'You got to do it the way you're wired to do it, not the way anyone else did.' And I just tried imperfectly to stay true to that."

Her championship speech captured both the character-first philosophy and the competitive fire it channeled: "Connectivity. Attention to detail. I looked them in the eyes before the game, and I said, 'I'm so proud to be able to say this. Because all year we've been saying the talent is our floor, but our character will determine our ceiling.'"

UCLA's title is the program's first since the 1978 AIAW championship — the women's collegiate tournament that preceded the NCAA's adoption of women's basketball as an official sport in 1982. This is the second-ever Big Ten school to win the women's title, joining Purdue from 1998. The tournament that produced this result averaged 10.3 million viewers through the Elite Eight — the best audience since 1993.

President Obama posted on social media: "Congratulations to Lauren Betts and the sensational seniors at @UCLAWBB for winning their first NCAA Championship!" Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass added: "Congratulations to the UCLA Bruins Women's basketball team on making history with their first-ever NCAA Women's Basketball Championship title!"

For South Carolina's Dawn Staley, who just days earlier had her famous sideline confrontation with UConn's Geno Auriemma — a now-viral exchange that reflected the competitive intensity driving women's basketball into its highest-profile era — the defeat was the second consecutive title game loss. Her team (36-4) returns a talented group led by Joyce Edwards and Agot Makeer and will be favored to return to the championship game in 2027.

Lauren Betts, 22, described the personal journey that led to Phoenix: "Basketball has given me the platform to change peoples lives. I was put on this earth not just to score points, but to help people. And I've gone through my journey because other people have experienced the same thing. I'm always going to speak my truth because I know it's going to help people." The 2026 WNBA draft awaits her — the specific next chapter of a player whose specific talents and character both exceed what tournament statistics can fully capture.