UCLA Women's Basketball: How Regular Season Gaffes Led Bruins To "Group Of Death"

This season's UCLA Bruins women's basketball team ended its 2023-24 season run with a valiant effort in the Sweet Sixteen, against the reigning NCAA champions. The 27-7 UCLA Bruins fell 78-69 to the LSU Tigers on Saturday. In the aftermath of the contest, head coach Cori Close decided to re-litigate what led the Bruins into probably the most brutal bracket of the NCAA Tournament, according to Ben Bolch of The Los Angeles Times.

UCLA fell into a second-place tie with the USC Trojans in the Pac-12 conference standings for the year, thanks to a buzzer-beater loss to the Oregon State Beavers, a single-possession defeat to the Washington State Cougars, and a double-overtime loss to the aforementioned Trojans. They're now in what Bolch is calling the "Group of Death," the Regional 2 bracket.

“There’s three games specifically that we know let get away that — not taking anything away from those other teams, but we had opportunities to close them; we didn’t,” Close said. “That’s why we’re on the East Coast. We have nobody to blame but ourselves for that.”

“I will play this over and over in my head and try to figure out from my perspective how I could have led them better or different,” Close said. “But you’re not going to win games in this level giving up 30 points in the fourth quarter. Again, I’m the head coach. I’m responsible. They’re young. I need to lead them better, and I need to lead them into situations where they have the confidence and that we execute in those scenarios. Youth cannot be our excuse.”