This post was updated April 5 at 6:06 p.m.

PHOENIX — Over six minutes remained in the fourth quarter and Gabriela Jaquez was already receiving a standing ovation as she subbed off the court.

Sure enough, the senior guard would be back on the hardwood to end an afternoon – and her collegiate career at UCLA – in triumphant fashion.

But for now, the Bruin faithful were vocalizing the feeling of watching an athlete who had grown across four seasons in Westwood lead her team to uncharted territory.

“I pictured this moment many times – being a national champion,” the senior guard said.

Led by Jaquez’s team-high 21 points, No. 1 seed UCLA women’s basketball (37-1, 18-0 Big Ten) ended its season nothing but defiantly with an 79-51 win over No. 1 seed South Carolina (36-4, 15-1 SEC)  in the NCAA national championship Sunday afternoon in Phoenix. Five Bruins posted double-digit points for the 15,856 attendees at the Mortgage Matchup Center to bring home the program’s first – and the school’s 126th – NCAA trophy. 

“Today was just a fantastic display of our resilience,” said senior guard Kiki Rice. “The intensity that we came out with, our goal to win – we knew, we had a feeling this was our time, this was our year.”

After Friday’s Final Four slate proved to be a battle of defenses, with UCLA holding No. 1 seed Texas to a season-low 44 points – 20 points fewer than the team’s previous low – and South Carolina upsetting No. 1 overall seed UConn in a contest featuring only 110 combined points, the championship game was poised for yet another physical fight.

And while coach Cori Close’s oft-said motto of “defense wins championships” rang true, with the Bruins limiting the Gamecocks to just 29% shooting from the field and a 13.3% clip from beyond the arc, it was the team’s offense that brought the Bruin faithful to their feet.

Specifically, it was Jaquez – the Camarillo, California, local, who has been a storied Bruin name over the last four years – that had the fans sporting blue and gold at the Mortgage Matchup Center out of their seats.

Jaquez’s 53.3% shooting percentage and 10-rebound performance gave her a double-double that was an appropriate bookend to her senior campaign, having last achieved the feat in the Bruins’ season opener.

“She’s a relentless rebounder,” said South Carolina coach Dawn Staley. “She has this championship-type behavior and the intangibles that’s needed in order for you to win, and if you don’t prioritize her on the court, she’s going to make you pay.”

Fellow fourth-year Bruin Rice struggled to find her rhythm in the first quarter, going 0-for-4 from the field with uncharacteristic misses that barely hit the rim. 

The usual confidence the senior instilled was minimized as she dribbled the ball with less than five seconds left in the opening quarter, shepherding players down the court while drawing up a final play. 

That was until a quick sidestep to juke out her defender and a 3-point attempt that sent Rice falling to the hardwood resulted in something the Bruins heard plenty Sunday afternoon. 

Swish. 

The basket from deep gave the Bruins a 21-10 lead entering the second quarter. 

Not only were UCLA’s 21 points more than they scored in the entirety of the first half against Texas in the national semifinal but the Bruins also maintained their improved offensive production without compromising defensive fortitude, limiting the Gamecocks to 3-for-18 on their first-half field goal attempts.

The inbounding struggles the Bruins faced against the Longhorns reappeared when they were charged with a 10-second violation under four minutes from halftime. 

This was followed up by a turnover from graduate student guard Charlisse Leger-Walker that marked the third turnover in just over a minute, and UCLA seemed to be slipping back into old habits. 

Then came a fast break layup from guard Ta’Niya Latson off Leger-Walker’s turnover, and the Gamecocks were slowly eating into what had once been a 15-point Bruin lead.

But that would be the only field goal from Latson across the entirety of the first half, and the efforts of South Carolina guard Tessa Johnson inside the arc were not enough to combat her team’s 25.7% field goal percentage across the first two frames. In fact, Johnson was the only Gamecock to make more than one basket from the field in the first half.

“It starts with that perimeter pressure, and our guards did a really good job making it difficult for them,” said senior center Lauren Betts. “And once we get stops, they’re not able to do what they want to do. That’s when we want to get in transition and be able to score.”

While Johnson was the clear bright spot in a Gamecock performance clouded by an 18-for-62 outing from the field, to laud the Bruins’ offensive firepower by recognizing just one player would be a disservice to the team’s functionality and their depth and chemistry on display Sunday.

In the third quarter, UCLA took advantage of the electricity generated from Leger-Walker’s fourth 3-pointer of the NCAA Tournament and extended its lead to 22 points before settling on a 61-32 advantage over Staley’s squad entering the final frame.

Staley is no stranger to playing on the nation’s biggest stage, with the Gamecocks having appeared in four of the last five national championship games and taking home the trophy in 2022 and 2024. 

And while UCLA may have been playing in its first national championship game in the NCAA era, the experience of its senior and graduate student-dominated roster seemingly trumped the unfamiliarity of new territory.

“If any of our six seniors were on any other team, I believe they would have been an All-American,” Close said. “And to say that ‘That’s not as important to me as experiencing this together.’ Wow. How lucky am I to be a part of young women that would make that hard – right – choice.”

Late in the third quarter, even redshirt sophomore forward Amanda Muse, who averages six minutes a game, was joining in on the defense action, recording just her eighth steal of the season. 

Amid South Carolina’s silent offense was Madina Okot, who has scored in double digits in the Gamecocks’ last five tournament games. 

While it was predicted that the 6-foot-6 center could be one of the toughest matchups 6-foot-7 Betts would face, the showdown of the post players ended before it began.

Stifling Okot – who scored just six points off of nine attempts from the field – not only aided the Bruins on the scoreboard but on the boards as well, where Close’s squad outrebounded the Gamecocks 49-37. 

The fourth quarter was a victory lap from UCLA, as a game-high 46.2% shooting from the field for South Carolina, featuring its first 3-pointer since the first quarter, was not enough to stop the tsunami that Jaquez and her teammates had created.

“We were all just really determined – the core group – to do something UCLA has not done before in the NCAA era,” Jaquez said. “And we always believed. We always believed.”

And so UCLA proved the validity of its reputation as a basketball school for arguably the first time in the millennium, bringing the program its first national championship since 1978 and first NCAA title in program history.

“Although we didn’t win, I can swallow it because we lost to a really good human being and a really good team that represents women’s basketball well,” Staley said.