UCLA’s unconventional strategy to win a national title — all seniors, all the time
One by one, UCLA women’s basketball coach Cori Close replaced her starting lineup in the final minutes of her team’s national championship victory Sunday.
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Point guard Kiki Rice, a senior.
All-American center Lauren Betts, a senior.
Gabriela Jaquez, a senior.
Gianna Kneepkens, graduate student.
No other team in college basketball this season, men’s or women’s, designed its roster to be as veteran-dependent as UCLA, whose 12-player roster included eight seniors or graduate students. During the NCAA Tournament, Close’s rotation of playing time almost exclusively featured his older players. Those picks added pressure to Sunday’s national title showdown against South Carolina — because if the Bruins didn’t capitalize and win a title now, before virtually their entire rotation leaves for the WNBA, there might not be a better chance in the future.
Instead, UCLA beat South Carolina 79-51 to win the program’s first NCAA title in a way that may never happen again. Bruins players, in their final year of eligibility, scored the team’s 130 Final Four points, and 170 consecutive points overall dating back to the start of the tournament.
Women’s college basketball rosters are older than men’s rosters, in part because of WNBA rules. Under the league’s new collective bargaining agreement, only players who have graduated from college and are at least four years out of high school or have reached age 22 in their draft year are eligible for the WNBA draft. Still, that hasn’t incentivized teams to go all-in on a single class like UCLA did when constructing its championship roster. Since 2000, the women’s Final Four MVP award has only gone to a senior nine times.
Still, the unconventional model of a high-flying roster worked for UCLA, which finished the season on a 31-game winning streak to become the Big Ten Conference’s first national champion since 1999.
“It’s really indescribable,” Close said of his seniors in a postgame interview on ABC. “The loyalty, the unwavering spirit, the character they chose day in and day out. I am so honored that they chose to commit to our mission.”
This mission, initially, was not to win a title for UCLA.
Of the six seniors or graduate students who led UCLA in scoring this season, only two, Rice and Jaquez, began their careers at Westwood at UCLA.
Betts, the Big Ten player of the year, was a transfer from Stanford. In 2021, Angela Dugalić, a 6-foot-4 star who played off the bench this season, transferred after one season at Oregon. Charlisse Leger-Walker transferred two years ago from Washington State. And Gianna Kneepkens arrived a year ago after transferring from Utah.
In building its roster using the transfer portal, UCLA is no exception. South Carolina also used the portal to add two of its best players this season, Ta’Niya Latson and Madina Okot. But the NCAA’s relaxed rules that allow for quick transfers and instant eligibility don’t always translate into immediate chemistry.
“It’s not going to magically happen,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley told reporters over the weekend.
It didn’t happen immediately for the Bruins either. Last season, UCLA advanced to its first Final Four in program history, but was defeated by UConn, 85-51, the largest margin of victory ever in a national semifinal.
In March, Jaquez told ESPN that the blowout loss became a rallying cry throughout the ensuing offseason, during weight sessions last summer and as practices resumed this fall at Westwood. UCLA has found its strengths this season in players like Leger-Walker, the New Zealand native who transferred to UCLA in 2024 but missed last season due to injury. Leger-Walker scored 10 points in 26 minutes against South Carolina, but Close told reporters Saturday that her impact on UCLA began even while she was injured.
“Charlisse Leger-Walker is probably one of the biggest connectors on our team,” Close said. “She’s only been here two years. If you asked every player who is one of the most important people who brought us together as a whole and not just individual parts, they would say her.”
Kneepkens, who transferred from Utah last offseason, also provided the Bruins with a different element with her 42 percent 3-point shooting, the 14th-best mark in the country this season. No other teammate shot better than 38%.
This season, Rice produced career highs in points, field goal accuracy, rebounds and steals. Jaquez played one of the best games of his career in the title game, exploding for 21 points, including a 3-pointer in the second half that pushed the Bruins’ lead past 30.
“We felt like it was our time, our year,” Rice said after the game. “We came there all weekend and we weren’t turned away.”
Long before the game was a blowout, however, Betts was superb in building an 11-point lead after one quarter, the second-largest deficit South Carolina has faced all season after the first quarter.
“She’s improved from last year, she’s patient. I mean, she has what, four seniors around her?” said Raven Johnson of South Carolina after the game. “She is an elderly person herself. The experience is very useful.”
On the eve of Sunday’s championship game, Betts said, “I really wish I could live a thousand more years” with her fellow seniors and graduate students, whom she called her best friends. The team will look drastically different next season, with Close saying — in an understatement of all time — that UCLA will be busy recruiting transfers this offseason.
“There is no better way,” Rice said, “we can hope to end our careers.”
