LOS ANGELES — With eight seconds left in the third quarter, UCLA trailed their crosstown rivals USC by 13. The Bruins had possession with a chance to stem a 9-0 Trojans run heading into the final period. Instead, UCLA wasn’t aware of the clock, and the quarter ended with the ball in forward Timea Gardiner’s hands.
It brought to mind a similar situation from a previous Bruins-Trojans matchup when the teams met in the 2024 Pac-12 semifinals. UCLA had the ball with a chance to win at the end of both regulation and the first overtime and didn’t get a shot off either time, eventually losing in the second extra period.
The Bruins may not have been in a position to win regardless Saturday with the double-digit deficit, but the scene was all too familiar, especially for those who have doubts about UCLA’s abilities to win big games. The Trojans left Pauley Pavilion with an 80-67 victory to earn the Big Ten regular-season title — the first opportunity for either team in their inaugural season in the conference.
“I’m just really pissed off we didn’t show up and do our jobs,” UCLA coach Cori Close said after the game. “We’re gonna have to do some real hard looks in the mirror.”
Over the past three seasons, when the pressure has been the highest, the Bruins haven’t been at their best. In 2023, after upsetting Stanford in the conference tournament semifinals, UCLA fell to lower-seeded Washington State in the championship game. The Bruins had numerous late-game miscues against USC in the Pac-12 tournament the next year and followed that with a fourth-quarter letdown against LSU in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. In the process, they’ve also lost four straight games to their rivals.
Spending 12 weeks as the top-ranked team in the country and winning 27 games during the regular season, including a dominant victory over defending champion South Carolina, doesn’t diminish the disappointment of falling short with a championship on the line in the Big Ten regular-season finale.
UCLA has the talent to compete with any other team. There remains a mental hurdle that it has to overcome to start hanging banners.
Close was red in the face as she addressed the media after the loss, crumpling up the box score in frustration. Always one to shoulder the blame on herself and her coaching staff, Close stopped just short of calling out players who didn’t perform up to expectations. “Our team was prepared,” Close said. “We knew what to do and we didn’t do it.”
From the tipoff, the Bruins didn’t follow their game plan. They gave JuJu Watkins a clean look on her first jumper by going under a screen, allowing Watkins to get comfortable from the perimeter. They didn’t box out on a Rayah Marshall jumper — despite sinking into the paint and deliberately conceding that shot — which enabled Kiki Iriafen to secure the offensive rebound and a put-back. They had bad floor balance in transition defense, where Watkins is a nightmare.
Each of those items was at the top of the scouting report, and UCLA screwed up in every facet, falling behind by double digits before the first media timeout.
When the Bruins pulled to within three, mistakes piled up in the second quarter. Kiki Rice nearly committed a backcourt violation to start the period, and Angela Dugalić telegraphed a pass on the perimeter on the ensuing possession, which allowed Iriafen to score on the break. Janiah Barker followed that with a wild attempt at the rim in isolation, and UCLA once again trailed by 10.
The pattern followed every time the Bruins managed to close the gap. USC would regroup and UCLA would throw the ball all over the gym, not even giving itself a chance to get over the hump. In that game-breaking stretch to end the third quarter, a Bruins’ miscommunication between Dugalić and Gardiner led to a turnover and fast break score for Iriafen. That preceded two missed free throws and yet another giveaway on an entry pass to Lauren Betts.
“We turned the ball over, we didn’t execute the scout,” Rice said. “But those were mental errors, self-inflicted wounds. I didn’t think they really did anything to prevent us from being able to run our offense.”
UCLA was successful on set plays. The Bruins executed effectively on nearly every baseline out-of-bounds and were able to score within their structured offense, even against the best defense in the Big Ten, but they broke down when the first option didn’t work. Superstars like Watkins can score off broken plays and settle a team when the rhythm breaks; for the second time against the Trojans, Betts wasn’t able to do that. She was whistled for multiple travels in the paint and a three-second violation, unable to find her footing. Her 11 points and 11 rebounds weren’t the dominant presence that UCLA needed to counter Watkins or even Iriafen.
For most of the season, Betts has been the best player on the court. She carried the Bruins past Louisville, the Gamecocks, Baylor and a stacked Big Ten schedule — most recently helping UCLA erase a 12-point second-half deficit against Iowa.
“It’s a very weird dichotomy, because on the one hand, we have a team that’s lost two games all year, and we have a lot to still play for, and we have a lot to be proud of,” Close said. “And at the same time. I’m really angry. And we let each other down today.”
One way of looking at this loss is that it represents a bad matchup for the Bruins, who have beaten everyone else in their path this season. But after this core has come up against the same ceiling for three years running, it’s more likely that UCLA has some structural issues that show up in close games, and double-digit victories in 22 of the first 23 games didn’t test those.
“We’ll regroup, we’ll get better, we’ll respond to this,” Rice said. “But I do think we’re going to have to figure out a way to be different than we have been this entire year.”
The Bruins projected confidence that they can change, pointing to the win over the Hawkeyes and another close contest against Michigan State as examples of their toughness. But those aren’t Final Four teams, and that is the standard UCLA is chasing.
This was a golden opportunity for the Bruins to prove themselves on several fronts: that they could fight back against the Trojans, that they could execute down the stretch in a close game, and that they could win a championship. All of those possibilities are still in front of UCLA. The ball is in the Bruins’ hands. What are they going to do?
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
USC Trojans, UCLA Bruins, Women’s College Basketball
2025 The Athletic Media Company
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