This post was updated April 23 at 12:24 a.m.

We won’t fully appreciate UCLA women’s basketball’s national title for a while.

Yes, even with the watch parties, post-championship celebrations and homecoming mob, we haven’t given this team and program the admiration it deserves – and may not for some time.

In fact, we may appreciate the 2025-26 Bruins less before we give them the recognition they deserve.

Unfortunately, it’s the nature of sports.

For all the reasons that UCLA’s second national title – and first sanctioned by the NCAA – is so unique at this time in collegiate athletics, it will be treated as a championship out of time.

It’s a product of the failed logic that a good coach equates to a good team, which equates to wins and vice versa. It implies losses are a product of a bad team, which is the fault of the coach – who is bad.

The Daily Bruin is no exception to this bias.

In March 2023 – following a loss in the Sweet Sixteen – The Bruin published a column arguing that coach Cori Close had not done enough to bring UCLA into the spotlight, with alumnus and then-Sports staff writer Gavin Carlson writing, “Basketball fans in Westwood don’t celebrate almost-champions.”

In November 2023, Carlson, by his own admission, recognized the improvement Close and the then-6-0 Bruins had made, demanding the team receive the attention and attendance it deserved.

But in April 2024 – three days after UCLA’s loss to No. 3 seed LSU – the flip had flopped. Carlson wrote a column that called the loss Close’s “most disappointing” yet. He added that UCLA’s poor performance falls on the coach more than anyone, that basketball in Westwood is measured by championships and that Close’s resume was on the line, despite her accomplishments.

UCLA isn’t well-suited for the 2026-27 campaign, and people have recognized it for some time.

The Bruins have eight seniors and graduate students on their 2025-26 roster and are losing their entire starting lineup for the 2026-27 season.

Freshman forward Sienna Betts led the Bruins’ non-graduating players with 14.1 minutes per game, and she appeared in just 28 of the team’s 34 games.

Close’s championship team was largely built on a core that stuck together year after year, through all of those tough losses Carlson wrote about and the ones that came in the past two seasons.

Senior guards Kiki Rice and Gabriela Jaquez came in as freshmen ahead of the 2022-23 campaign. Graduate student forward Angela Dugalić transferred in 2022 after spending her first year at Oregon. Senior center Lauren Betts did the same in 2023, jumping from a bench role at Stanford to a starting one at UCLA.

Graduate student guard Charlisse Leger-Walker medically redshirted her first season in Westwood after transferring from Washington State in 2024 despite UCLA already having a starting point guard in Rice, before becoming a key component of the championship team.

Yes, the transfer of guard Elina Aarnisalo from North Carolina back to UCLA likely helps in the continuity department, but it’ll be a tall task for the Helsinki, Finland, local – and any of the returning Bruins – to follow in the footsteps of Betts, Rice, Jaquez, Dugalić and graduate student guard Gianna Kneepkens.

On top of this, UCLA has just one 2026 recruit in 5-foot-9 guard Somto Okafor.

The Bruins are almost guaranteed to regress next season, and the reality is regression can be okay. In UCLA’s case, it should be forgiven. Building a team as dominant as the Bruins were this season – in the way Close did – is a slow process.

UCLA missed the big dance in 2022, had back-to-back Sweet Sixteen losses and got blown out in the Final Four in 2024 before finally hoisting the trophy.

Fans will often say they would give anything to see their team win a title. But if that “anything” comes to mean losses down the line, many will cry foul.

Come a down year in 2026-27 and even 2027-28, the narrative around Close and the Bruins may, once again, turn. Today, Westwood is happy with a championship, but it may be upset if it doesn’t get one tomorrow.

Still, with enough time, people will finally be able to appreciate the 2025-26 Bruins for the program culture they built – one that emphasizes player development over short-term success.

The impact of UCLA’s run didn’t stop when they cut down the nets.

If sports is simply about winning, more winning and losing, then we will never find ourselves content.

There will always be another game to play.

In sports, you must find aspects that resonate beyond a trophy – whether that be emotion, maturity, enjoyment, heartbreak or something else entirely.

Only then can anyone appreciate these events, feats and accomplishments for something independent of whether or not the Bruins win their next game.