In 2024, UCLA Athletics left the Pac-12 after 96 years of competition.

Most programs moved to the Big Ten, with some sports that did not compete in the new conference playing in the MPSF.

There were doubts about how the programs would transfer over, but those doubts no longer remain. In the two seasons since departing from the Pac-12, UCLA teams have combined for 11 conference tournament titles and four national championships.

Big Ten dominance

Upon joining the conference ahead of the 2024-25 year, every squad was thrown into the fire.

Yet the Bruins did not falter in their transition to the Big Ten.

UCLA women’s soccer took home Westwood’s first-ever Big Ten tournament championship just months after beginning competition in the new conference.

The squad took down former Pac-12 foe Washington in the semifinals before a dominant 5-0 victory against Rutgers in the championship match, securing the first of five conference titles that UCLA Athletics would capture that year.

UCLA men’s soccer took one additional season to reach the top of Big Ten play.

Coach Ryan Jorden’s squad posted a 3-4-3 conference record and fell in the Big Ten tournament semifinals to Michigan in 2024. But in 2025, the team improved to 5-3-2 in conference play. It defeated Maryland 2-0 in the Big Ten tournament semifinals before exacting revenge on Michigan 5-0 to secure the tournament title.

But for some teams, there was no learning curve when joining the Big Ten.

UCLA women’s basketball amassed a 33-2 conference record in its first two seasons in the Big Ten, including an undefeated 18-0 2025-26 season.

The squad secured its first trophy by taking down crosstown rival USC in the conference championship game after falling to the Trojans twice in the regular season.

In addition to being the first conference tournament title for the program since 2006, the 2025 title helped the squad secure its first No. 1-overall seed for March Madness in program history.

In its second season in the Big Ten, coach Cori Close’s squad reached dominance in the Big Ten tournament, winning its three games by a combined point differential of 79. To punctuate their second conference campaign, the Bruins trounced Iowa by 51 points.

Led by Olympic medalist and former Bruin Jordan Chiles, UCLA gymnastics also claimed its spot atop the Big Ten mountain in consecutive seasons.

At the 2025 Big Ten championships, coach Janelle McDonald’s squad posted a meet-winning score of 198.450. The following season, the squad again paced the conference at the Big Ten championships with a 198.100 en route to back-to-back titles.

Far from indoor mats, the Bruins also dominated on the golf course.

Coach Armen Kirakossian’s men’s golf squad secured back-to-back Big Ten championships and first-place finishes, posting scores of +2, 842 and -8, 832 in 2025 and 2026, respectively.

And for UCLA men’s tennis, the transition to Big Ten play was seamless.

After a 2-6 start to the 2025 season, coach Billy Martin’s squad began conference play on a six-match winning streak that included five sweeps and a 30-1 cumulative score.

But despite the early dominance, Martin said the transition had its challenges.

“It was a real learning curve for me, too,” Martin said. “That many years in the Pac-12, going to the same schools, knowing the hotels I wanted the guys to stay in, the restaurants we want to eat. Everything was new. There were a lot of those campuses I had never been to.”

But the Bruins continued their winning ways. Led by then-redshirt sophomore Emon van Loben Sels and then-freshmen Rudy Quan and Kaylan Bigun, Martin’s squad finished the season 11-2 in conference play despite missing 2024 Pac-12 Newcomer of the Year and All-American Spencer Johnson for much of the season.

And on April 27, 2025, the squad downed No. 1 seed Ohio State 4-3 to win its first Big Ten tournament, with van Loben Sels winning Most Outstanding Player.

“We played an incredible match in the finals to upset them,” Martin said. “That was probably as satisfying a win in my career.”

The Bruins also dominated at the ballpark after their conference switch.

After finishing as the runner-up to Nebraska in the 2025 Big Ten Tournament, UCLA went the distance in 2026. Then-junior first baseman Mulivai Levu played hero, blasting walk-off hits in both the quarterfinal and semifinal games.

And the squad that went a historic wire-to-wire as the consensus No. 1 for all of the 2026 regular season downed No. 3 seed Oregon in 11 innings to win its first conference championship in program history.

UCLA baseball’s 2026 iteration was loaded with talent – 10 Bruins were selected in the 2026 MLB Draft.

But while it seemed inevitable all season long, UCLA baseball capturing the conference crown was an unprecedented feat – the squad had never won a conference title in the Pac-12.

MPSF play

For three sports, conference play was not impacted.

Men’s volleyball and men’s and women’s water polo did not play in the Pac-12, but were already competing in the MPSF.

But beach volleyball was a program that did have to make the move from Pac-12 play to MPSF play. UCLA was one of seven teams to make the move to the MPSF, including USC, with the crosstown rivals being two of three programs to have ever won the national championship.

With additional Pac-12 schools also joining the MPSF, there was not a large shift in the Bruins’ schedule.

“It honestly wasn’t much of a transition at all – it’s a lot of the same teams,” said beach volleyball coach Jenny Johnson Jordan. “We’re in charge of our schedule, so we can schedule whoever we want outside of our conference obligations that we do. But really, they’re not obligations at all. We have a strong conference, and it helps prepare us for any and everything that we do competition-wise as the season goes on.”

Despite the lack of change competition-wise, the media rights revenue alone doubled the amount of media rights revenue given by the Pac-12.

“When our department benefits, our program benefits as well,” Jordan said. “For us, we got a lot of increases in terms of making fueling a huge priority.“

Although the program has yet to capture the MPSF title – falling in the semifinals in 2025 and in the championship match in the 2026 season – the transition could end up paying off in the future.

Despite three of the Bruins’ four national championships in the past two seasons coming from MPSF squads, only one MPSF title has been taken home by the four non-Big Ten teams.

UCLA’s team with the most national championships captured the 2026 MPSF men’s volleyball tournament title after a conference season with just one dropped match. The squad started the season with its best start since 1984, going 20-0 with 14 of those wins being sweeps.

And although the Bruins were upset early in the NCAA tournament, this MPSF victory – alongside their 21 national titles – showcased the continued dominance of the men’s volleyball program out of Westwood.

National championships

UCLA athletics holds the second-most NCAA championships in the country, boasting 127 – a mark that is bested only by Stanford’s 139.

And with four of those national championships being won in the past two years, the Bruins show no intention of slowing down.

The first two in this span came from men’s water polo’s back-to-back rings in 2024 and 2025.

After dropping the MPSF championship match to USC both years, coach Adam Wright’s squad was able to conquer the crosstown rivals when it mattered most – the national championship games.

Nabbing its 13th and 14th titles, the program took its place as third in national championships at UCLA, behind only men’s volleyball and men’s tennis.

But success at the new conference’s big stage did not come immediately for all Bruin squads. The women’s basketball team was able to finish the job a year after joining the conference.

After a regular season with one loss and an undefeated Big Ten record, the 2025-26 Bruins entered March Madness as a No. 1 seed and the second-highest overall seed.

A revenge win against Texas – the only squad to defeat coach Cori Close’s group throughout the regular season – in the Final Four sent UCLA to its first national championship in the March Madness era.

The dominant 79-51 victory over South Carolina gave the team its first-ever national championship in the March Madness era. This title was also the only one from the past two years to be from a Bruin team competing in the Big Ten.

And the Bruins kept pushing.

Jordan’s beach volleyball team entered the 2026 NCAA tournament as the No. 3 overall seed and upset No. 2 overall seed Texas in the semifinals before downing No. 1 overall seed Stanford in sweeping fashion for the championship.

“UCLA is equivalent to family for me, and that’s because of the people that have gone in and out of those doors, and on and off of those courts,” Jordan said. “They’ve made it what it is for me, and so being able to win a championship, nothing would be more special than that.”

The Bruins’ victory secured the third NCAA national championship in program history and made the 2025-26 athletic season the first time since the 2017-18 season that three teams donning the blue and gold won at the highest level.

A national title in the 2026-27 year would make five straight seasons with at least one NCAA national championship for UCLA Athletics.

The success of one team carries over into other squads across Westwood, and the consistency of the Bruins through the Big Ten and the MPSF should help them see even more success in the coming years.