Among those in attendance Friday to support UCLA<\/a> were class of 2002 alumni and college roommates Candice Wilmuth and Amy Shoemaker. Shoemaker traveled from Long Beach, while Wilmuth came from Lake Tahoe.<\/p>\n \u201cI am excited for women\u2019s basketball to get the support that men\u2019s gets,\u201d Shoemaker said. \u201cFor me, part of coming out this weekend is also putting my money where my mouth is. This is part of women stepping up and getting the recognition they deserve. I want UCLA basketball for women to be the same moneymaker [as it is for men\u2019s]. If I\u2019m walking through the airport and people are like, \u2018Why are you wearing your UCLA gear?\u2019 Then I\u2019m like, \u2018UCLA\u2019s in the Final Four.\u2019 They shouldn\u2019t have to say, \u2018It\u2019s the women.\u2019 That\u2019s what I hope, because I think UCLA has an incredible sports lore. I think it\u2019s super exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n UCLA fans cheer during the first quarter of the Bruins\u2019 win over Texas during a Final Four game Friday at Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix.<\/p>\n (Ronaldo Bolanos\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Shoemaker hopes that two-time All-American Lauren Betts<\/a> can leave the same legacy as that of many of the UCLA men\u2019s greats.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I hope for is, you know like when you\u2019re at a game and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/a> comes to the game and everybody stands up and claps, that the same would happen for Lauren Betts in 20 years,\u201d Shoemaker said.<\/p>\n Wilmuth and Shoemaker have also been impressed with the character<\/a> of UCLA coach Cori Close\u2019s<\/a> team.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd they\u2019re the kind of people you want to be,\u201d Wilmuth said. \u201cNot just because they\u2019re amazing basketball players, but they\u2019re really making positive choices about who they want to be as people and that\u2019s so much more important than just a sport. And it makes me really proud to be a Bruin and proud to be affiliated with them.\u201d<\/p>\n Scott and Dianne Parker, a retired couple from South Pasadena, attended the Bruins\u2019 first two games at Pauley Pavilion this season. A few days before the Final Four, they decided to make an impromptu trip to Arizona to cheer on UCLA.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m an alumni and on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, we said, \u2018Let\u2019s go to Phoenix!\u201d Dianne recalled. \u201cWe\u2019re retired. We could do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Dianne believes the future is very bright in Westwood.<\/p>\n \u201c[I expect] more wins,\u201d Dianne said. \u201cCori Close is a great coach. I think she\u2019s got what it takes to build a good team. They\u2019re losing a lot of talent, so that will be hard, but I think that she\u2019ll put the best team she can together.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a difficult decision for Kathy Jeffries and her daughter, Kirstie, both UCLA alums, to travel to the desert from Pasadena for the Final Four weekend.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are season ticket holders for the Bruins and we just could not pass this up,\u201d Kathy said. \u201cOnce in a lifetime. Well, hopefully not once in a lifetime, but the first in a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n Though last year\u2019s Final Four run ended in bitter heartbreak, Kirstie is more optimistic about UCLA\u2019s chances this year.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year\u2019s team was a great team,\u201d Kirstie said. \u201cBut they seem to have even more camaraderie and chemistry, so we\u2019re just big fans of them personally and athletically.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX\u00a0\u2014\u00a0UCLA fans flooded the streets of downtown Phoenix hours before the tip of Friday\u2019s Final Four game against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[111907,1956,2454,111909,111908,111906,423,111911,48,52,51,7036,47,50,49,1555,592,427,39380,111910,1557],"class_list":{"0":"post-251916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-amy-shoemaker","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-bruins-fan","12":"tag-dianne-parker","13":"tag-final-four-bruins","14":"tag-game","15":"tag-kirstie","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-la-headlines","18":"tag-la-news","19":"tag-last-year","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","22":"tag-los-angeles-news","23":"tag-man","24":"tag-people","25":"tag-team","26":"tag-ucla-fan","27":"tag-wilmuth","28":"tag-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251916","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=251916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"UCLA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775326276_958_.jpeg\")
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