How UCLA Women's Bball Won March Madness 2026!

We break down the women’s March Madness Final Four and title game with a focus on what actually swung possessions, not just the final scores. From UConn’s missed chances vs South Carolina to UCLA’s title run, we track the effort plays, the matchup problems, and the players who look ready for the next level. 
• UConn vs South Carolina game flow and why it felt closer than 62-48 
• Star struggles early and who still impacted the game 
• Late-game turnovers and how momentum flips 
• Free throw disparity and what creates it 
• Texas vs UCLA and the Madison Booker off night 
• How UCLA survives 23 turnovers and still advances 
• Lauren Betts as the interior difference maker 
• UCLA’s championship blowout and the decisive third quarter 
• South Carolina’s lack of support scoring behind Tessa Johnson and Agate Makeer 
• Gabriela Jaquez’s breakout line and WNBA-ready case 
• Quick WNBA draft stock check on key names 
So please make sure to like and subscribe, comment, tell anyone who's anyone about women's college basketball, the WNBA, and also my show. 

Transcript

Opening And Women’s Final Four

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What's up, everybody? It's your favorite show's favorite show, get a bucket. I'm your host, Trey, as usual. I hope you're all having a wonderful, wonderful day. Today we're gonna be gentlemen and talk about the women's side of March Madness. Not just because it's over, but I mean, you know, we gentlemen around here. You know, like ladies go first. Ladies go first. So with that, ladies and gentlemen, let's start it off here with Zip Final Four. Now, I think last time I gave y'all my updates, my predictions, if you will. And I thought Yukon was gonna actually beat South Carolina. If I'm just called a spade a spade, I thought they might win this game. And well, like they they tried. They tried. Yukon ends up losing to South Carolina 62 to 48. The game was actually a little closer than what the point total just like shows, though. Like that delta ain't really accurate across the board. I'm talking about as much as, shoot, at the at halftime, Yukon, I think, was up two. Like it was a tight game, 26-24 favoring Yukon. The things that I noted about that first half, it was a tight game because, well, the best players on both teams kind of struggled. Like Joyce Edwards goes three of 11 for six points, four rebounds, no assists, one steal, no blocks. Sarah Strong gives you three of ten, eight points, six rebounds, one assist, two steals, two blocks. Sarah looking like she's doing only, even though both players aren't doing too well. Mind you, Sarah Strong's on UConn's team, Joyce Edwards on South Carolina's team. Next quarter, Joyce actually showcased a little bit more scoring than Sarah did. And actually, Sarah only Sarah didn't score another bucket in the third quarter. Now she had 8.9 rebounds, three steals, two blocks to Joyce's five or 10 points, five rebounds and two steals. But ladies and gentlemen, we need to see a little bit more out of Sarah scoring the ball wise. Because South Carolina, they ended up commanding that lead in the third quarter and pretty much held it the rest of the way. Now, I think we got to point out the fact that a lady, a young lady by the name of Kaylee Heckle, right? She probably will be heckled after her two blunders at the end of the game. Because this is a critical point in time where you know what? Yukon could have came back, and she gets two critical turnovers, and it's just it's just not a good look. We could talk about the vast free throw disparity favoring South Carolina, okay, where it was 22 to 6. Again, 22 free throws for South Carolina and six free throws for Yukon. As a Duke fan, I've heard about the free throw disparity. Something like that can be a little glaring. But, you know, I personally don't that South Carolina was out hustling UConn. Then we got to look at Agate McCure. She ends up scoring nine points straight for South Carolina. Yukon They didn't just lose it then. Like South Carolina kind of took it, if I'm to be honest with y'all. Because again, they showed more effort. And I told y'all before this seas, before this game started, I'm gonna be paying attention to a couple of things. Like the coaching matchup. And I think Don Staley's team was more energetic than Gino Oriyama's team. Now, it's funny because at the end of the game, Gino became a little more energetic than Don did. Something about apparently Dawn didn't shake hands. I don't know what, I don't know what Gino was on. It's tough losing, all right? Trust me, I understand. There's a lot of emotions going on. But overall, ladies and gentlemen, this was by far the most entertaining game of the day. Again, 62 to 48. It wasn't as indicative of how the game really went, personally. It was the largest disparity over the two games in the Final Four. So shout out South Carolina. We'll probably see you come back at some point in time. But with that being said, let's go ahead and go on to the next game, which was Texas versus UCLA. Again, ladies and gentlemen, these were all number one seed teams. So you're expecting a little bit of animosity, a lot of entertainment from all four teams. Now, I thought Madison Booker for Texas was going to end up being the best player on the floor. Like I thought there was a world where that actually happened. I'm not ignorant for saying that, too, because if y'all know who Maddie, Maddie, like Madison Mill, how Booker, I mean, however you want to call her, like she's a mid-range specialist. She's even called Maddie Mid-range specialist. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, like that, like she's the mid-ranger of the Power Rangers, if you want to give her something. Like, like she's a bucket getter, ladies and gentlemen. She's getting she's getting compared to the likes of Kevin Durant. She wears the same jersey number and she attends the same college that KD attended. She's getting compared to him quite nicely. Well, she was kind of trash offensively. Let's just call her spade a spade, okay? She was kind of trash offensively. Now, to be clear, she averages 19 points a game. UCLA did a wonderful job of holding her to six points. But going three of 23 was kind of interesting. To be clear, Maddie hits her first bucket. It was nice a pull up, mid-range, in the middle of the court, like cash, butter, draws. And then after that, it just gets loosey-goosey the whole way. She couldn't even average a field goal made per quarter. That's wild. From somebody who averages 19 a game, that's crazy. And let's be clear too, ladies and gentlemen, okay? UCLA wins this game 51 to 44. If you look at the stats across the board, they're kind of similar. Like they really are. Like we're talking about field goals made. Forget about field goals attempted. Wow. But the field goal attempted disparity is quite high. But field goals made. Texas made 20. UCLA made 18. How did they win this game? It's crazy. UCLA makes four threes to Texas's two. Now, the the free throw disparity might end up being what happened. Because you get 12 free throw attempts for UCLA and five for Texas. And that's where you kind of get that seven-point differential between 51 and 44. Right. But everything else was kind of lined up. Like the turnovers actually favored Texas because UCLA had 23 turnovers in this game. So the fact that they had 20, they almost doubled the amount of turnovers that Texas did, and they win the game still. I hate to put this on Maddie. I really truly do. But like a lot of it has to do with Maddie. Again, you go three of 23. Your team should lose. Now let's be let's let's be mindful of this, though. Texas only lost by seven. So that's not too bad. That free throw delta, like I said, it was it was by the margin of seven attempted. And then we're talking about made, well, you know, nine was the difference. But that's a lot. And in the first quarter, too, let's be clear, when we're talking about scoring, there was an eight-point delta favoring UCLA. That was the largest gap of the entire game. Texas actually wins a quarter. Then they tie the third quarter, and then they lose the fourth by four. So you win the second, tie the third, lose the fourth and the first. It's not too terrible. Like they could, again, they could have won this matchup. I thought Roy Harmon was going to have a breakout game, and she did pretty well. She did okay. She was effective, she was an effective two-way player. And I think honestly, if Maddie performs half of what she usually does, Texas wins this game. And again, I hate it because Roy was Roy was hooping, bro. Five assists, four steals, eight points. She could have scored a little bit more efficiently, but her effort on the floor was top tier. And then when we're looking at, well, the player of the game, I think it was in fact Lauren Betts, because yes, she did have 16 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, one turnover, and three blocks. But how she played against Texas's bigs was big itself. It was quite grandiose. Because remember now, ladies and gentlemen, they had they have some they have some height on their team. And there's a saying you can't teach height. Well, Lauren Betts just proved even though they have height on their team, Lauren can still, it's it's good if you bet on Lauren Betts. That's what she said, all right? Anybody going seven of ten in a Final Four game against quality defenders, that's not bad, ladies and gentlemen. So again, UCLA and South Carolina, both these teams impressed me during the Final Four matchups. Texas, I saw how they could win. Yukon, I saw how they could have won. Sarah didn't give enough on the offensive end. And as a result, too, they kind of struggled. Now, again, keep in mind, keep in mind, keep in mind, South Carolina's Joyce Edwards didn't do that well either. She went five of 14. So the game was winnable, but here's the problem. Again, UConn didn't have anybody to step up. Ergo, South Carolina ended up winning this game. So when we're talking about the championship game, South Carolina versus UCLA, ladies and gentlemen, we gotta give a kudos to UCLA for putting belt to tail. Like this was pure BTA work. If you understand my belt to, that's what we're talking about. 79 to 51. And quite frankly, like that third quarter was gr oh my gosh. Actually, the first quarter, yeah, the third quarter was worse than the first. Because the first quarter, UCLA goes up 21-10. You're thinking maybe South Carolina can come back. They lose by two the second quarter. That third quarter, South Carolina only puts up nine points to UCLA's 25. You know it's bad at that point in time. Now, UCLA hasn't won a title since 1978. And matter of fact, their head coach has been coaching UCLA for 15 seasons as a head coach. That's the longest head coaching tenure being had in college basketball. I know specifically for my tale, I have not heard that. Where you keep your job? Like I just told y'all how coaches like John Shire should potentially lose his job after six seasons. And he's been kind of decent. Hubert Davis lost his job after five. Like, what? Coach Calapari lost his like after what, 10 to 12? So again, hey, UCLA kind of doing all right from a coaching perspective in terms of that tenure. And again, like I told y'all, ladies and gentlemen, UCLA, this game, they they just solidified her coaching tenure for the rest of her life. As long as she wants to coach, she's gonna be cool. Because UCLA, in the first half, they up by 13. Then in the second half, in the third quarter, with like five minutes left, they go up 48, 26. I told y'all the la I told y'all the point to score, uh, the point delta, 79 to 51. That's a lot of disparity right there. And mind you, this game was like the amount of damage that was done was early on when Lauren Betts wasn't even playing. Like she comes in for a little bit, but then for some reason she had to go out of the game. That's when UCLA goes on their run. Now, we gotta look at this too, because apparently UCLA took six more field goal attempts and made 10 more field goal attempts. And I want to say that might have been no. They took seven more field goal attempts and made 12 more. That's disgusting work. South Carolina got to the free throw line more than UCLA. Like that's just yeah, that's just bad. South Carolina's pressure, it won't be sufficient versus UCLA. Joyce Edwards, hey man, this was an underperforming game and a half, I'll say. Because we're we we we go again with three for ten. Now, she does a little bit better all around game, but she only gave eight points, 11 rebounds, three assists, one steal, no blocks, and gave two turnovers. We can't have that. Your best player can't be playing like that. Also, nobody else really wanted to step up for South Carolina outside of Tessa Johnson and Agate McKear. Both of them shot relatively efficiently. Tessa gave 14 points. Agate gave 11. Like, nobody else really did their thing. But against UConn, oh, they were smooth though. So Tania Lotson, Raven Johnson, the fact that y'all couldn't do better than what you guys did, that does hurt. We've seen these seniors play for quite a while. And I was expecting a little bit more. I can't hold you. I'm not, I'm not trying to get too I'm not trying to go at them too much. I'm just saying, though, when you only got four points and three points for both of y'all players and two buckets made between the two of them, that's kind of crazy. Remember, like Tania Lotson, won't she like a 20-point per game scorer at one point in time? You know what I'm saying? Like, like, bro, in her career, she was a 25 point per game scorer and then 21 points per game, then 21 points. Like her freshman year, ladies and gentlemen, she was averaging 21. Like, that's the real 21 savage right there. Like, that's crazy work. So the fact that we can't get more than what she did, that I don't know whether that speaks volumes on Tania or whether that speaks volumes on the on UCLA, because one, she only took five. Dang, she only took five field goal attempts. And Raven took seven. And it's funny because Raven actually be the one that's supposed to be playmaking more so. Got no assist. They just had South Carolina all discombobulated. Ladies and gentlemen, this was, yeah, this was bad. And and we gotta give, we gotta give shout outs to arguably the best player of the game, which was Gabriela Jacques. Now keep in mind, ladies and gentlemen, she got her brother plays in the NBA. This is Jaime Jacques Jr.'s sister, right? But she kind of bounced back from this game statistically. Effort-wise, she was moving them puppies in the Final Four game. But like this game, given 21 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, one turnover with one steal, that's not bad. Eight of 14 from the field, two of four from three, and three from three from the free throw line, she looked WNBA ready. She looked WNBA ready. Like, I I'm not even gonna lie, bro, because she's going to the league. Like, she's getting drafted. We just need to talk about how high can she go. Because if she could play like this consistently, shoot. I'm not saying number one pick. That may be a little bit too much. But a six-foot guard playing like that, I could see her. And on top of that, she averaged about 13 points shooting four, 54 from the field, 39 from the three-point line, and 86 from the free throw line? That's not bad. And in her career, she's never scored, she's never shot lower than 46% from the field. Ladies and gentlemen, this is an improved player. I can see her going potentially top five. Like South Carolina really met its match. And UCLA, we got to tip the caps to them. Because again, ladies and gentlemen, they they kind of defied odds. I'm still surprised that they won against the Texas team. Texas had to have a like, yeah, it was just a lot. But overall, ladies and gentlemen, this was a lot of entertainment across the board. Shout outs to UCLA for getting it done. Lauren Betts, this might have helped your case out for potentially going number one. We have some first rounders to talk about on this on this floor. We got Tania Lots and Raven Johnson from South Carolina. You could say Joyce Edwards if she was old enough to go. Then you got here, Lauren Betts, Gianna Niepkins, who shoots 40% from the three, by the way. And she's been doing that for quite a while. I say I said just last season she might go top five, top six, and that looks like it might happen. Kiki Rice was getting the bucket out there. Like, ladies and gentlemen, I already told y'all what Gabriella was doing. Like, this this was this was a quality team. And I mean it is cool to see seniors end up getting the job done. They've had a really solid season. Going 37 and 1, that's not bad. That's not only losing one game is pretty spectacular. So again, ladies and gentlemen, kudos to UCLA. Kudos to them for defying my odds. Because again, I thought UConn might win it. Even though I thought others had a possibility for sure. Because again, I did, I wasn't gonna be foolish. I thought South Carolina could have beat UConn. I just leaned UConn. I thought Texas could have beat UCLA. That's why I leaned them. But they defied odds, like I said. So again, congratulations, ladies, for getting a bucket. All the starters got a bucket easily. Multiple buckets, actually, because all of them got 10 plus points. That's how you win. But ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if you missed the games, go to YouTube, watch the game, watch the highlights, listen to the audio, hear the excitement in my voice. This was truly a phenomenal weekend. Even though my Blue Devils could not get the job done in advancing to the Final Four, it's understandable. Because you know what, A, we lost to UCLA. And if I'm being honest with you, bro, yeah, we lost by 12. I don't remember a team being up against UCLA like that. Like, I don't think Texas was. South Carolina was not. So that makes me think, dang, Duke could have actually, you know what I'm saying, done a little something. That's crazy work. So I appreciate you, UCLA, for giving me as a Duke fan some optimism. But ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, that does conclude the end of the episode. So I will be talking about the WNBA draft predictions or expectations, however you want to classify it, in the upcoming episode. So please make sure to like and subscribe, comment, tell anyone who's anyone about women's college basketball, the WNBA, and also my show. My name is Trey. I'm the host of Get a Bucket. I hope you are all having a good one. Take care.