{"id":185884,"date":"2026-02-20T09:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/185884\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T09:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:54:11","slug":"no-2-ucla-beats-washington-clinches-share-of-big-ten-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/185884\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 2 UCLA beats Washington, clinches share of Big Ten title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The No. 2 UCLA<\/a> women\u2019s basketball team beat Washington 82-67<\/a>, extending its win streak to 20 games, clinching the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten tournament and earning at least a share of the league title Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows how hard we are working throughout the season, and we\u2019re just going to have to continue to try to get better,\u201d Bruins center Lauren Betts said. \u201cObviously it\u2019s great, but we have bigger things that we\u2019re looking forward to, so we\u2019re just going to continue to keep our heads down.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is the Bruins\u2019 first conference championship since the 1998-99 season, when they tied for first in the Pac-10.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have a couple of alumni that were on that team here today, that\u2019s really special, and I really want to compliment these guys for always having a sense of humility,\u201d coach Cori Close said. \u201cWe walk on the shoulders of the people that came before us, and we\u2019re just really thankful to be in the position we\u2019re in, and in the No. 1 net conference in the country for women\u2019s basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UCLA's <\/p>\n

From left. UCLA\u2019s Angela Dugalic, Sienna Betts and Gabriela Jaquez swarm Washington guard Hannah Stines at Pauley Pavilion on Thursday.<\/p>\n

(Gina Ferazzi\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Betts scored a game-high 23 points and was one of five Bruins to finish with double-digit scoring, while Washington freshman Brynn McGaughy recorded the second-highest total of her career with 19. Avery Howell scored 17 points and led the Huskies with seven rebounds.<\/p>\n

With the exception of Gianna Kneepkens, who was three for four from three-point range and scored 17 points, UCLA (26-1, 16-0 Big Ten) struggled from beyond the arc against the Huskies, shooting 26.7% \u2014 below its season average of 38.2%. <\/p>\n

The Bruins nearly doubled up the Huskies on rebounds, 37 to 20, and had 24 assists, with eight coming from Charlisse Leger-Walker, including for 10 of Kneepkens\u2019 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny shooter or person in the country wants to play with someone like Charlisse,\u201d Kneepkens said. \u201cI like watching her play, just because of how consistent she is and how she finds people, even in the smallest spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington (19-8, 9-7) had four players who scored six points during the first half, while UCLA\u2019s Betts led the way with 14 points and Angela Dugalic added eight.<\/p>\n

The Bruins led the Huskies 22-12 after the first quarter and extended that lead to 42-29 by halftime, leading by as many as 19 midway through the second quarter.<\/p>\n

McGaughy went on a run in the third quarter, scoring 10 points in a row en route to the Huskies\u2019 highest-scoring quarter of the game to that point (19). But the Bruins still won the quarter, adding two points to their lead.<\/p>\n

\"UCLA <\/p>\n

UCLA center Lauren Betts drives to the basket under pressure from Washington center Yulia Grabovskaia at Pauley Pavilion on Thursday.<\/p>\n

(Gina Ferazzi\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been watching a lot of film on Washington, and they played really hard and really well today,\u201d Close said. \u201cI thought they played the best basketball they\u2019ve played in the Big Ten for a while today, and give them all the credit for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

UCLA has two regular-season games remaining, playing its home finale against Wisconsin on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. and against rival USC<\/a> on March 1.<\/p>\n

The Bruins will honor six graduating players before facing the Badgers. After the win over Washington, Betts asked fans to attend senior day on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been really fun to be a part of their process and coach them in the day to day,\u201d Close said. \u201cI told them that in the locker room, like, I don\u2019t want to miss a moment, you guys. I don\u2019t want to miss any point of growth. I don\u2019t want to miss a moment of celebrating. I don\u2019t want to miss a moment of opportunity to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The No. 2 UCLA women\u2019s basketball team beat Washington 82-67, extending its win streak to 20 games, clinching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48966,8932,17976,423,87595,39730,48,52,51,48226,5814,47,50,49,87596,1417,10807,30246,1092,87594,558],"class_list":["post-185884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-basketball-team","tag-bruins","tag-first-quarter","tag-game","tag-high-scoring-quarter","tag-huskies","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lauren-betts","tag-lead","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-p-m-pst","tag-point","tag-route","tag-streak","tag-ucla","tag-ucla-player","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}