first-ever SEC championship with a 78-61 win over South Carolina<\/a>.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
UCLA finished the year 35-1 with an undefeated record in the Big Ten under long-time head coach Cori Close. Senior center Lauren Betts has been among the stars of the show, leading the team with 17.2 points, 8.6 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game, with Kiki Rice, a projected first-round pick in this year\u2019s WNBA draft, right alongside her. A win Friday night would mark UCLA\u2019s first-ever trip to the tournament championship game.<\/p>\n
Texas-UCLA start time: 9:30 p.m. ET
Location: Mortgage Matchup Center | Phoenix
TV channel\/live stream: ESPN<\/p>\n
Follow along with Yahoo Sports for the latest updates as No. 1 seeds Texas and UCLA face off in the women\u2019s Final Four.<\/p>\n
Live13 updates<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 6:35 PM PDT<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 7:51 PM PDT<\/p>\n
Madison Booker and Lauren Betts got wrapped up going for a rebound. Betts went down hard grabbing her head, while Booker was grabbing her left knee.<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 7:47 PM PDT<\/p>\n
Both teams have struggled to hit shots so far in the third quarter, with each picking up just two points a couple minutes into the half.<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 7:41 PM PDT<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 7:25 PM PDT<\/p>\n
UCLA has been in control for most of this one, but Texas had a much stronger second quarter to put them within three. After the Longhorns only scored six in the first quarter, they held the Bruins to the same total in the second. Rori Harmon has a game-high eight points, while Gianna Kneepkens leads the Bruins with seven.<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 7:16 PM PDT<\/p>\n
Rori Harmon drains a jumper to put Texas within four, but Lauren Betts answers immediately with one of her own.<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 7:10 PM PDT<\/p>\n
In case you\u2019re wondering how this is going for the Longhorns\u2026<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 7:03 PM PDT<\/p>\n
Kyla Oldacre finally ended Texas\u2019 nearly four-minute scoring drought, but the Longhorns still face an eight-point deficit. UCLA\u2019s Gianna Kneepkens leads all scorers with five points, while Texas\u2019 Madison Booker is 1-of-6 shooting.<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 6:54 PM PDT<\/p>\n
Texas is down 10 points, by far the largest deficit it\u2019s faced this tournament. The Longhorns have missed their last five shots and haven\u2019t scored in about four minutes.<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 6:48 PM PDT<\/p>\n
She\u2019s got four points about halfway through the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 6:45 PM PDT<\/p>\n
Madison Booker hit the first shot for Texas, but the Bruins went on a 7-0 run before the Longhorns got another bucket.<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 6:41 PM PDT<\/p>\n
Who will it be on Sunday against South Carolina?<\/p>\n
Fri, April 3, 2026 at 5:41 PM PDT<\/p>\n
On this side of the bracket, some new \u2014 or at least new-ish \u2014 blood will emerge. UCLA has never played in a national title game, and Texas hasn\u2019t been there since it won it all in 1986<\/a>. That year, the Longhorns authored the first perfect season in NCAA Division I women\u2019s basketball history.<\/p>\nThese teams have already squared off once this season. That was on Nov. 26 at the Players Era Championship. Texas established a 20-point lead by intermission and held on for a 76-65 win. Bruins center Lauren Betts suffered a left arm injury after Madison Booker stripped the ball from her in the third quarter. Betts later returned to the floor but finished with just eight points and wound up missing the following game against Duke. Booker finished with 16 points on a mere 6-of-17 shooting.<\/p>\n
The Longhorns were paced by senior guard Rori Harmon. She piled up a season-high 26 points to go along with five assists.<\/p>\n
Both Texas and UCLA are in the Final Four for the second year in a row. In 2025, Cori Close took the Bruins to their first-ever national semifinal, and Vic Schaefer reintroduced the Longhorns to that stage for the first time since 2003. Now they\u2019re going head-to-head with a trip to the national title game on the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s another showdown between two No. 1 seeds to close out the Final Four in the NCAA women\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[34575,82636,34522,28771,5024,27,29,537,28,792,5279],"class_list":{"0":"post-234425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-championship-game","9":"tag-ncaa-womens-basketball-tournament","10":"tag-rori-harmon","11":"tag-sec-championship","12":"tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-texas-headlines","15":"tag-texas-longhorns","16":"tag-texas-news","17":"tag-ucla-bruins","18":"tag-vic-schaefer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}