Sunday\u2019s game at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento wasn\u2019t a fun, free-flowing joy ride that so many of the Bruins\u2019 wins have been this season.<\/p>\n
It was a rattling, teeth-gritting, heart-thumping roller-coaster ride \u2014 weeeeee!<\/p>\n
The Bruins weren\u2019t having fun, exactly. They were having the time of their lives.<\/p>\n
And in the end, they shoved their way to the front of the stage \u2014 and back to the Final Four.<\/p>\n
Now the TikTok countdown is on before final exams in Phoenix, where redemption and legacy and a rematch await with either winner of the No. 1 Texas vs. No. 2 Michigan tussle in the Fort Worth Regional final.<\/p>\n
And any questions \u2014 ahem, mine<\/a> \u2014 about how the barely-battled-tested boogie-down Bruins respond to a significant stress test were answered.<\/p>\n The Bruins are built for this.<\/p>\n They\u2019re not just talented. And they\u2019re not just talented dancers (and postgame, Lauren Betts<\/a>, Charlisse Leger-Walker<\/a> and Gabriela Jaquez<\/a> reprised the routine that went viral when they did it with the UCLA Dance Team during halftime of a men\u2019s game this season).<\/p>\n They\u2019re tough. And they\u2019re locked in.<\/p>\n And unlike last season, when their program\u2019s Final Four debut ended in a 85-51 national semifinal blowout loss to eventual champion Connecticut, they\u2019re ready for what comes next.<\/p>\n They let us know in the second half Sunday.<\/p>\n Duke came floating in, still buzzing from Friday\u2019s buzzer-beater in the Sweet 16. That slow-motion-in-real-time three-pointer by Ashlon Jackson that rolled around and around the rim as though the basketball gods needed just a little more time to determine UCLA\u2019s opponent Sunday.<\/p>\n UCLA\u2019s Lauren Betts, left, Gabriela Jaquez celebrate after the Bruins defeated Duke on Sunday to advance to the Final Four.<\/p>\n (Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n It was to be Duke, who proved a dangerous No. 3 seed. The Bruins weren\u2019t prepared for the Blue Devils to be so prepared for them, trailing at the break for just the second time this season. The first time was in November against Texas, when the Bruins \u2014 now a program-record 35-1 \u2014 suffered their only loss this season.<\/p>\n Still their only loss.<\/p>\n Even a fool could read the determination on the Bruins\u2019 faces as they roared back from a 39-31 halftime deficit; they\u2019d come so far together, but they so badly wanted to go further.<\/p>\n No one was ready to get off the ride, not least the six seniors who played the entirety of the second half, seizing momentum and the moment and hitting the Blue Devils (27-9) with a white-knuckled flurry of activity.<\/p>\n \u201cCompliment them,\u201d Duke coach Kara Lawson said, \u201cfor turning up their defensive intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n There were 50-50 balls in name only, because UCLA seemed to be winning 100% of them.<\/p>\n UCLA players were ripping away passes. They were diving all over the floor and were all over the boards. They ratcheted up the intensity so much it spread into the stands, where the largely pro-Bruins crowd of 9,627 cheered deliriously.<\/p>\n Shots started falling. Turnovers stopped cascading. UCLA found its rhythm.<\/p>\n And UCLA\u2019s 6-foot-7 star center Betts did what she does, with 15 points, eight rebounds and two blocks in the second half, of which she played all 20 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just pretty mad,\u201d she said. \u201cYou know, my senior season is on the line, so I kind of got to wake up a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n Angela Dugalic continued to be the matchup nightmare she has been all March; the 6-4 sixth woman scored 15 timely points to take some pressure off Betts.<\/p>\n UCLA coach Cori Close watches play during the Bruins\u2019 win over Duke on Sunday.<\/p>\n (Eric Thayer\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just so proud of her,\u201d Betts said. \u201cThe confidence and her poise … you could get in your head in moments when we\u2019re down … but she did all the right things and what we needed at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n It was an entertaining Elite Eight clash that was brought to you by two coaches who staged, like up-and-coming chefs, under two of the greatest leaders the sports world has known.<\/p>\n UCLA coach Cori Close and Lawson committed to making sure we won\u2019t lose John Wooden\u2019s and Pat Summitt\u2019s recipes \u2014 never mind all the seismic, disorienting shifts happening in college sports.<\/p>\n A former Tennessee star, Lawson brings Summitt\u2019s brand crackling intensity to Duke, a mindset that she\u2019s said calls for supreme confidence, chasing excellence and holding oneself to an all-around standard of success.<\/p>\n UCLA\u2019s bench was uplifted all season by Close\u2019s warm intentionality, learned from years of mentorship from Wooden. The main ingredients, she\u2019ll tell you, requiring a dollop of growth, gratitude, of giving and not taking.<\/p>\n \u201c[Our] team culture is not this nebulous thing or phrases on a wall,\u201d Close said. \u201cIt\u2019s a group of people that are willing to be committed to the hard, right behaviors over and over again. I cannot tell you how many times throughout that game we referred to our values, who we are, what our identity was, what we had to get back to.<\/p>\n \u201c… I\u2019m just really humbled and thankful to be a part of a team and staff that cares about things from the inside out. What you saw on the court is a reflection and a byproduct of what\u2019s happened on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The team that can\u2019t stop dancing won\u2019t stop dancing. The top-seeded UCLA women\u2019s basketball team beat Duke 70-58…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[8932,108914,23324,104290,423,48,52,51,48226,47,50,49,84125,18158,108460,278,108915,427,564,315,1092],"class_list":["post-242824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bruins","tag-defensive-intensity","tag-duke","tag-final-four","tag-game","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lauren-betts","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mindset","tag-no","tag-pat-summitt","tag-season","tag-second-half-sunday","tag-team","tag-texas","tag-time","tag-ucla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242824","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=242824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"UCLA's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774836755_492_.jpeg\")
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