This post was updated April 8 8:43 p.m.

Cori Close’s leaders rose from the press conference podium after taking the toughest loss of their careers. And then the coach turned her head with one thing to say.

“Good job, ladies,” she said to juniors center Lauren Betts and guard Kiki Rice.

UCLA women’s basketball had just been flattened by 34 points in the Final Four – the most lopsided defeat in the national semifinal. It was the kind of loss that threatens to erase six months of brilliance in a single night.

[Related: No. 1, done: UConn guts UCLA women’s basketball by 34, ending historic NCAA run]

So at that moment, Close wasn’t speaking to the 40 minutes her squad had just endured. It was to the months it spent becoming something unforgettable.

A season of firsts, it was one that ought to be remembered – not for the final score in Tampa, Florida, but for what the year did to rewrite the legacy of the program. Because in their very first run through the Big Ten, the Bruins shattered the hype.

They rattled off 23 straight wins, the longest streak in program history.

They sat atop the nation for 12 weeks, longer than any other team in the country.

They stacked 34 wins, more than any Bruin squad, and dropped just three games all year.

They hoisted a Big Ten tournament trophy, the program’s second-ever conference title.

And they danced all the way to the Final Four, returning blue and gold to the national semifinal after 46 years – back when the NCAA didn’t let women in the door.

“We’re trying to create our own legacy,” Betts said. “This team is one of the greatest teams to ever compete at this level, and I think that we’re trying to just kind of just create our own path.”

The 85-51 scoreboard in Tampa will never quite capture what this team built. It aggrandized a program that cannot be reduced to one unraveling against a team built for the brightest stage.

Second-seeded UConn – steered by the maestro of March, Geno Auriemma – entered familiar territory in Final Four No. 24 with title No. 12 just two wins away.

UConn, long hailed as the basketball capital of the world, blitzed UCLA en route to steamrolling South Carolina by 23 in the championship to reclaim its throne as the sport’s epicenter.

So the Bruins didn’t choke. They just ran into the final boss.

Unlike the other three teams, the Bruins were at their first national semifinal in 46 years, featuring a team whose only March memories were, at most, of Sweet 16 exits. And rare is the team that cuts down the nets on its very first Final Four run.

So if you were really watching – not just Friday night but all season – you know this team permanently raised the bar for UCLA women’s basketball.

“We’ve obviously gone to new heights this year, but we got to let the pain teach us to go to new heights next year,” Close said. “At the same time, wanting to honor our team for all the firsts that they had: how they represented UCLA on and off the court, how they took us on a ride that has never happened in a long, long time. And just really proud of their effort, the way they grew, the new things they accomplished.”

The loss to the Huskies stung, and there’s no way around that. Auriemma’s staff had UCLA scouted to perfection, forcing the Bruins into their most disjointed performance of the season. Painfully, it was likely the moment much of the country finally tuned in to this team.

[Related: How Husky hustle handily scouted UCLA women’s basketball out of its identity]

That’s the cruelty of March. You can be magnificent for six months only for one bad night to become your epitaph.

“We all put in so much work to get to this point – coaches, players, our entire support staff – and we’ll remember that,” Rice said. “Our last year will fuel us because we have a lot going forward for us. At the end of the day, we lost three games this entire year, and it sucks right now, but looking back, we’ll be very grateful for the year we had.”

From tipoff in Paris on Nov. 4, some of us never tuned out of this team.

We saw the rout of South Carolina, the 23-game tear, the redemption against USC in Indiana, the rally past LSU.

“It’s the hardest-working team that I’ve ever been a part of, top and bottom,” Close said. “I have to kick them out all the time of the gym. They want more. They’re incredibly hardworking, and I have to give that credit to Kiki Rice because she has set a cultural standard of work that is contagious and pervasive.”

Half of the 1978 AIAW title team adorned the stands in Tampa, their presence a nod to the legacy created nearly five decades ago. Alumni lined the hotel lobby as UCLA headed out Friday night. It was like a baton passed across generations.

“The amount of alumni that made the trip there that were cheering us on, … we don’t do that alone,” Close said. “Our culture is built on doing something bigger together than you can do on your own.”

So, no, this team didn’t leave March with a trophy.

But they left with the burden and the beauty of being the ones who broke through.

So good job, ladies.

Good job.