SPOKANE, Wash. – The No. 1-seed UCLA women’s basketball team outlasted No. 3-seed LSU, 72-65, to clinch the Bruins’ first-ever trip to the NCAA Final Four on Sunday afternoon before 9,299 at Spokane Arena. Gabriela Jaquez paced UCLA (34-2) with 18 points against LSU (31-6) in the regional final contest. Jaquez, who made 5 of 7 […]
SPOKANE, Wash. – The No. 1-seed UCLA women’s basketball team outlasted No. 3-seed LSU, 72-65, to clinch the Bruins’ first-ever trip to the NCAA Final Four on Sunday afternoon before 9,299 at Spokane Arena.
Gabriela Jaquez paced UCLA (34-2) with 18 points against LSU (31-6) in the regional final contest. Jaquez, who made 5 of 7 shots from the field, also led the Bruins with eight rebounds and three steals. Lauren Betts finished with 17 points, seven rebounds and six blocks, and Timea Gardiner tallied 15 points.
As a team, the Bruins connected on 10 of 24 attempts from 3-point distance (41.7 percent). Gardiner was 5-of-8 from long range, while Jaquez hit 4 of 5 attempts from 3-point distance.
Kiki Rice finished with eight points and eight assists and was a perfect 6-for-6 at the free throw stripe.
LSU’s Flau’Jae Johnson led the Tigers with 28 points, connecting on 10 of 17 shots from the field.
UCLA has earned its first-ever trip to the NCAA Final Four in its third-ever appearance in the tournament’s Elite Eight (regional final). Prior to this season, the Bruins advanced to the Elite Eight in 1999 and 2018, coming up just short of advancing to the Final Four. UCLA’s 1978 women’s basketball team won the AIAW National Championship, which preceded the NCAA adding a women’s basketball championship tournament starting in the 1981-82 school year.
Against LSU, The Bruins registered their seventh straight win this season and improved their all-time record to 29-19 in the NCAA Tournament.
UCLA will face the winner of this Monday evening’s Elite Eight showdown between No. 1-seed USC (31-3) and No. 2-seed UConn (34-3). The Bruins have become the second team to advance to this season’s Final Four, joining No. 1-seed South Carolina, which advanced with a 54-50 win over No. 2-seed Duke, earlier on Sunday.
“We’ve been having great first quarters and great third quarters,” said Cori Close, The Michael Price Family UCLA Women’s Head Basketball Coach. “And we were talking to our team and at the quarter break we said, ‘OK, here we go, right here. What are we going to do different to come out and execute?’ … It wasn’t even about Lauren [picking up two early fouls]. It was like, we want to play better all the way through this stretch. I thought we were very locked into what that look like. We talked about the adjustments we needed to make and how we needed to go about it. I think we got two kills in that period of time, which is three stops in a row, and that sort of fueled us and got us going with momentum.”
The upcoming two national semifinal contests are scheduled for Friday, April 4, at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla. Game times and matchups have not been finalized. UCLA’s game will begin at either 4 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. PT on Friday (7 p.m. or 9:30 p.m. ET).
In Sunday afternoon’s thrilling victory, the Bruins surged ahead late in the fourth quarter. Leading LSU by a 59-53 margin, Jaquez sank a crucial 3-pointer with 1:29 to play, pushing the Bruins ahead by nine points. Jaquez finished the game with a career-best four 3-pointers (on five attempts).
UCLA was ahead 56-45 with under seven minutes to play when LSU responded with an 8-0 scoring run. The Tigers’ cut UCLA’s margin down to just three points, at 56-53.
Betts made one free throw with 2:56 to play to stop LSU’s scoring run and put the Bruins ahead, 57-53. Less than one minute later, Jaquez drew a foul on a move to the basket and sank two free throws to push UCLA’s cushion up to 59-53.
Jaquez’s two free throws preceded the critical 3-point shot at the 1:29 mark. From that point in the contest, UCLA’s lead never fell to any fewer than five points.
Leading 51-45 with 7:53 to play in regulation, Gardiner sank a 3-pointer on an assist from Rice to push UCLA’s cushion up to nine points, at 54-45. That marked Gardiner’s team-leading fifth made 3-pointer of the afternoon. Betts followed the 3-pointer with a layup on a feed from Gardiner, push UCLA ahead, 56-45, with 6:54 to play.
After securing a six-point halftime cushion (31-25), UCLA increased its advantage to as many as 14 points midway through the third quarter. A steal and ensuing mid-range jumper by Londynn Jones with 7:07 to play gave the Bruins a 40-29 lead. Less than 30 seconds later, Jaquez nailed a 3-point shot to push UCLA ahead of LSU, 43-29, at the 6:40 mark.
LSU cut the Bruins’ cushion down to five points, at 46-41, with 1:22 to play in the third quarter. UCLA maintained a 46-41 advantage at the conclusion of Sunday’s third quarter.
The Bruins led LSU by a 31-25 margin at halftime on Sunday. Gardiner led the Bruins with nine points through the game’s first two quarters.
UCLA trailed LSU, 13-9, after the first quarter. The Bruins outscored the Tigers, 22-12, in the second period to secure a six-point halftime cushion. Gardiner connected on a 3-pointer with 1:21 to play before halftime, putting UCLA on top by a 30-23 margin. After a jump shot by LSU with 1:06 remaining, UCLA’s Janiah Barker drew a foul with under seven seconds to play and connected on one of two free throws.
Sunday’s win lifted UCLA into its first-ever Final Four in the 14th season with Bruins’ head coach Cori Close leading the program. Close has led UCLA to the tournament’s Sweet 16 in seven of the past eight seasons and to the Elite Eight twice (2018 and 2025).
