UCLA headed back to Final Four after comeback against Duke
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Cori Close put her hands on her hips and allowed herself to take a minute just by herself. She looked out at her UCLA players on the floor.
Then she started beaming, soaking it all in. UCLA is on to the Final Four for the second time in program history but also the second consecutive year under Close, whose Bruins beat Duke 70-58 on Sunday to win the Sacramento 2 Region at Golden 1 Center. No.
1 seed UCLA will take on the Elite Eight winner of top-seeded Texas and second-seeded Michigan in Phoenix on Friday. As the confetti fell and her players celebrated together, Close wasted no time perching a Final Four hat on her head as she waved to the UCLA faithful. Getting to Final Fours isn’t easy to begin with.
And Duke, especially in the first half, tested the Bruins. The Bruins looked out of sorts in the first half, committing two shot-clock violations and turning over the ball a glaring 12 times. They struggled with Duke’s swarming defense — which made sure to make shots difficult for 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts, who didn’t score her first point until about the 1:20 mark of the first quarter.
On defense, meanwhile, the Bruins couldn’t consistently stop Duke, which didn’t seem to care that Betts was in the paint and attacked the Bruins (and their four guards) down low with regularity. But before the Bruins even got to the locker room at halftime, Close was already workshopping solutions with her two ballhandlers, Kiki Rice and Charlisse Leger-Walker. Just two days after Close’s halftime adjustments were the difference in UCLA’s eventual Sweet 16 blowout of Minnesota, the Bruins flipped the page in the final 30 minutes of Sunday’s Elite Eight game, too.