Women's March Madness 2025: UCLA, fueled by 2024 Sweet 16 exit, seeks redemption with not-so-Hollywood style

The top-seeded Bruins aren't flashy, and that's exactly why they could make the Final Four

It's been almost a year since the UCLA Bruins fell to LSU in the 2024 Women's NCAA Tournament Round of 16. The Bruins held a three-point lead over the Tigers with less than two minutes to go, but the 2023 champions came roaring back to win by nine. 

That loss in Albany in no small way fueled coach Cori Close and her team.

"I think the bottom line is when you have regret and you have pain, which is we have that from last season, that it spurs you on," Close told CBS Sports on a phone call Wednesday.  

Close, who took responsibility for the LSU loss, described the months following UCLA's Sweet 16 exit as a soul-searching expedition. Once the wounds from the loss healed enough to reflect, the Bruins committed to getting better and doing simple things with elite consistency. 

Junior center Lauren Betts has embodied this approach. 

"We watched a lot of film from last season, which hasn't been easy," Betts told CBS Sports at Big Ten Media Day in October. "It's definitely holding us accountable to set this new kind of standard for our team."

Betts leads the Bruins in seven statistical categories this season, including points per game, minutes per game and field goal percentage. She's also been named a Naismith Player of the Year finalist. 

Spending time reviewing film helped UCLA refine the type of team it wanted to be in the 2024-25 season. As one of the upperclassmen on the roster, Betts has taken on leadership responsibilities for the Bruins. That started with setting the tone for the eight newcomers -- four freshman and four transfers. 

Women's March Madness 2025: Printable NCAA Tournament bracket with Elite Eight action about to get underway

CBS Sports Staff

"We're coming to this conference to win," Betts said in the fall. She emphasized proclaiming victory was about setting expectations and calling teammates into the culture, as opposed to being tough or intimidating.

In fact, the message Close and her staff have stressed all season is the importance of meeting success as a team. 

"We have a phrase: 'Sometimes you, sometimes me, but always us,' and this is a team that doesn't just say that," Close said Wednesday. 

Kiki Rice stepping up as leader

And while Betts has garnered a lot of much-deserved attention this season, the UCLA team has another strong leader in Kiki Rice. 

Bruins assistant coach Shannon LeBeauf spearheads the Leaders in Training (LIT) curriculum for the program. Although the program is voluntary, Close admitted Rice was "told to do it because we need her to be a leader."

The results have been a focused, vocal and highly influential lead guard. 

"What Coach Shannon has done so brilliantly is helped her [realize], 'You know what? You have a special way that you can influence, and it doesn't have to look like anyone else's. It doesn't have to be this loud, fiery voice. It can be very 1-on-1, very directed,'" Close said. "And she has worked with Kiki for her to find her style of influence, and and I think that has really been so important to us." 

Throughout the year, Rice has called team meetings and communicated with the coaching staff the night before games to go over the play cards, all in service of being prepared for anything. 

"She's really just an extension of the coaching staff," Close said of Rice, a 2025 Nancy Lieberman Award finalist. "She has the highest work ethic on the team. Thankfully, we have a lot of people who work really, really hard ... it's been really gratifying to watch her really find her voice and her style of leadership." 

Bruins' unglamorous approach

The Bruins return to the Sweet 16 on Friday, this time as the first overall seed in the tournament. While regret may have been the impetus for the Bruins' offseason reset, UCLA seems to have other motivations presently.  Not only did UCLA drop two games to USC this season, but there has been an underlying feeling that the Hollywood's team moniker hasn't extended to the Bruins. 

"[USC Trojans] have the Hollywood and and we've just got these scrappy team players that are really talented, but no one's talking about us," Close said in regard to the media coverage of USC and UCLA this season. 

USC defeated UCLA twice in the regular season, but UCLA finally found a victory over its rival in the Big Ten championship game. The teams could meet again in the Final Four, but USC will do so without Watkins after the star sophomore suffered a torn ACL on Monday against Mississippi State. 

"I'm so sorry about what's happened to JuJu," Close said. "It just breaks my heart."

Like all of the basketball world, Close is devastated that a young star suffered a season-ending injury. Whether Watkins' injury impacts the local or national attention cannot be known, and it's not what the Bruins are focused on. 

"We just want to keep winning and growing and giving to each other," Close said. 

In that way, the heartbeat of the team remains constant. And she wants that heartbeat to be palpable to fans who may be seeing UCLA play for the first time in this tournament. 

"If they're just tuning in to what we're doing, I think I would want them to say, 'Man, they play better together than any of their individual talents," Close said. And what a selfless, hard-working, and connected team.'

"And if we're that, I think they're going to be talking about us all the way to Tampa." 

The UCLA Bruins take on Ole Miss on Friday for a chance to advance to the Elite Eight.