UCLA honors its history while making more of it with NCAA championship: 'We had a feeling this was our time'
Now UCLA's storied sports history includes the 2026 women's team, which won in dominant fashion on Sunday to secure its first NCAA championship.
PHOENIX — Of Cori Close’s many corny, yet vital, motivational phrases , one stood out amid a series of confetti drops and trophy lifts. We stand on the shoulders of people who came before us. That’s legendary 10-time NCAA men’s championship coach John Wooden, whom Close met with and tapped into on many occasions in the 1990s.
She sees the banners every time she goes out to practices at Pauley Pavilion. That included the 1978 AIAW women’s champion team, which is often lost to history since the NCAA took over governance of women’s sports in 1982. Close is constantly texting with Ann Meyers Drysdale, Denise Curry and Debbie Willie Haliday.
Many of those champions are season-ticket holders. And beginning now, it includes Close and her 2026 UCLA women’s roster. The Bruins broke through for their first championship in the NCAA era on Sunday in a 79-51 destruction of South Carolina at Mortgage Matchup Arena in Phoenix.
UNIVERSITY OF CHAMPIONS, LOS ANGELES 🏆 UCLA TAKES DOWN SOUTH CAROLINA TO WIN THE WOMEN'S NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP! pic. twitter.
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