UCLA Wins First NCAA Women’s Basketball Title And Adds Another Woman Head Coach Champion
Cori Close led UCLA to the NCAA Women's Basketball title, continuing a trend where women head coaches have won 68% of DI national championships (30 of 44).
PHOENIX, ARIZONA - APRIL 05: Head coach Cori Close of the UCLA Bruins celebrates with the trophy after the victory against the South Carolina Gamecocks in the National Championship of the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament at Mortgage Matchup Center on April 05, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images) Getty Images Head Coach Cori Close cut down the nets tonight in the 2026 NCAA Women’s Basketball championship game , defeating Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks 79-51 in a title matchup that featured two women head coaches. It was a good night for women’s basketball.
It was also, if you look at the data, an expected one. Since the first NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament in 1982, women head coaches have won 30 of the 44 DI national championships. That represents 68 percent of all NCAA titles ever awarded in this sport at the Division 1 level of play.
Only three men have ever won, and yet, women currently hold fewer than half (roughly 45%) of the head coaching positions for women’s NCAA programs, a number that has drastically declined since Title IX passed more than 50 years ago. Women have won nearly seven in ten championships in a sport they are increasingly being pushed out of coaching. PHOENIX, ARIZONA - APRIL 3: Dawn Staley of the South Carolina Gamecocks after winning a NCAA Women's Final Four semifinal game against the UConn Huskies at Mortgage Matchup Center on April 3, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona.
(Photo by Ben Solomon/NCAA Photos via Getty Images) NCAA Photos via Getty Images Assumption that Men are Natural Leaders There is a deeply embedded belief in sport, and in most men-dominated industries, that men are the natural fit for leadership positions . This assumption shows up in hiring decisions, salary structures, career trajectories, and the steady erosion of women from positions of sport industry authority over the last five decades. In college sport specifically, the assumption is that roles such as head coach require traits such as being agentic, assertive, competitive, and dominant.
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