It had to be USC. It had to be the cross-town rival Trojans who stood in the way of the UCLA women’s basketball squad claiming the Big Ten Tournament title in both schools’ first year in the conference. At 29-2 entering Sunday’s championship game, UCLA had lost to only one team all season — USC (on Feb. 13 and March 1).
And it looked like a third loss was on the way. USC closed the first half on a 9-0 run, taking a 45-35 lead into halftime.
>> Subscribe to Sports Spectrum Magazine for more stories where sports and faith connect <<
“I really wondered what their eyes were going to look like when I went into the locker room at halftime,” UCLA head coach Cori Close said in the postgame press conference. “And they were poised and determined. They knew they had not played their best, and they didn’t do the things we needed to do, but they still believed they could turn it.”
Turn it around they did. The Bruins held USC to just nine points in the third quarter, and 13 in the fourth. That led to a 72-67 UCLA win, and its first conference championship since 2006, when it was part of the Pac-12. The Bruins stand at 30-2 on the season, the first time in program history that they’ve reached 30 wins.
Shower time! 🚿 #GoBruins pic.twitter.com/8gqRRHp9KS
— UCLA Women's Basketball (@UCLAWBB) March 10, 2025
The victory also moved the Bruins back to No. 1 in the country, the spot they held for 12 weeks before losing to the Trojans in February, and a spot the program had never reached before this season. With Selection Sunday coming this week, UCLA will surely be a No. 1 seed for the Women’s NCAA Tournament. USC will also likely be a No. 1 seed, meaning the Bruins and Trojans could meet a fourth time — in the Final Four.
Close opened her press conference Sunday with gratitude.
“Thankful and humbled to watch them persevere, to grow, to find ways to win, to be committed to selflessness. Just so grateful,” she said. “I just was praying this morning; I was like, ‘I just want to see them be the best version of themselves for each other,’ and that’s what I got to see today, is them just finding a way, in unpredictable ways.
“… I just really want to say thank you to all the people who helped us get here. My staff, incredible, selfless, hard working, mission minded, incredible. Then just all the people, just for me personally that I wouldn’t be sitting in this chair without.”
Close has been sitting in the head coach’s chair since 2011. This year will mark the ninth time she’s led the Bruins to the NCAA Tournament, but she’s seeking her first Final Four. In fact, the UCLA women have never reached the Final Four, as the Elite Eight is the furthest the program has ever advanced (in 1999 and 2018). Close’s teams have reached the Sweet 16 each of the past two seasons.
Throughout her time at the helm of the Bruins program, Close has led with her faith in Christ. Soon after taking the position in 2011, she told the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, “It isn’t as much about what I say as how I live and what I do. I want everyone I encounter to feel valued and loved whether they share my faith or not. I just want to enter their world and serve them and love them in a way that reflects what I’ve received from Jesus. I believe this is my ministry and what God has called me to.”
In 2020, she joined the Sports Spectrum Podcast and shared her testimony. She said she was raised in a family where her parents did a wonderful job of showing her how to love your neighbor and serve others. Her parents met when they worked on staff with the Young Life ministry, and Close said she was actually the only one in her immediate family who didn’t go into full-time work with Young Life.
“I would definitely say at an early age I accepted Jesus into my heart, but I would say it was a little bit more of a performance thing,” she said on the podcast. “More than anything, I knew that was the right thing to do and say. But the great thing is, I had so much wisdom and truth sewn into my heart my entire growing-up years.
“But I really think my true Christ-following journey started my freshman year of college. I went to UC-Santa Barbara and I played basketball there, and basketball in reality was really my god. I think I was about nine games in, I was starting, everything was going great. And I turned and ruptured my Achilles’ tendon. It just exploded and I didn’t know what to do.”
In the pain and confusion during the aftermath of the injury, Close said she received a note that read, “Sometimes when you’re a real doer, God lets you get to the end of your rope where your only choice is to let go and let Him catch you.”
“I think that’s the first time I ever sort of let go and said, ‘I can’t do this, God. I need You.’ And He sort of let me crawl into His lap and I said, ‘OK, I want to follow You and I want to learn what it means to abide in You — to have a relationship, to be obedient.’ Really I think that’s when a more dependent relationship really began.”
Close said her life verse is 2 Corinthians 12:9, which talks about God’s grace for us, and His strength being made perfect in our weakness. As she’s come to accept His grace and understand that being a Christian isn’t about all the things she can do for the Kingdom, she’s found peace in her role.
“A lot of what I was all wrapped up in was I was having to ‘do’ all these things for the Kingdom and I was gonna have to ‘do’ all these things right,” she said on the podcast. “… And I think God’s changed that in me, to just be like, ‘You know what, I need to love people right where they are and I need to just trust God with this. It is not my job to convert people; it is not my job to convince. My job is to ‘act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with my God’ (Micah 6:8) and to ‘be prepared to give an account for the hope that lies within me’ (1 Peter 3:15).
“… I gotta worry about walking in holiness the best I can; I gotta work on abiding in the Vine. I’ve changed my prayers so much; I pray that God [would] make me a fruit bearer.”
View this post on Instagram
That’s how she now leads her program, one of the finest in the country. As one of the top 16 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, UCLA will host first- and second-round games on its campus. The first round begins March 21-22.
>> Do you know Christ personally? Learn how you can commit your life to Him. <<
RELATED STORIES:
— SS PODCAST: Cori Close – UCLA Women’s Basketball Coach
— Coach Vic Schaefer leads Texas women, continues to ‘praise the Lord’
— Hailey Van Lith leads TCU on postseason run as she lives ‘to serve Jesus’
— WHAT’S UP PODCAST: Raegan Beers – Oklahoma Women’s Basketball
— Hannah Hidalgo surging for Notre Dame with Christ as her ‘everything’
