All Ball Sports: UCLA Women Make History; Coach Geno fouls Out

by Paul Teetor

When senior point guard Kiki Rice scooped up a loose ball and threw in a three-point buzzer-beater to give UCLA a 21-10 lead at the end of the first quarter in Sunday’s championship game against South Carolina, you just knew the Bruins were on their way to a magical win.

Exactly one year ago, the UCLA women’s basketball team was blown out and embarrassed on the national stage during a 34-point loss to eventual champion University of Connecticut in the NCAA semifinals.

This year the Bruins did the embarrassing – winning by 28 points in the title game.

UCLA led wire-to-wire while crushing the Gamecocks for their first NCAA title.

And they did it with a unique formula: all the points were scored by seniors.

When this amazing achievement is recorded in the history books, it will be noted that the Bruins were led this year – and last year — by 6-foot-7 superstar center Lauren Betts, a scoring machine who also patrols the paint and puts up No Trespassing signs wherever she needs to.

She was named Most Valuable Player of the Final Four, and deservedly so.

But the other players in this historic win should also be memorialized so their contributions are not forgotten or minimized as time goes by and they scatter to the winds – some to the WNBA, some to European leagues, and some to the rest of their lives. 

Start with Gabriela Jaquez, a senior who was the most valuable player in the Bruins most important game of the year. She finished the title game with 21 points, 10 rebounds and five assists, but more importantly, she set the tone of total hustle and fiery commitment on every play. She led and everyone else – including Betts – followed.         

Point guard Kiki Rice was the floor general that every great team needs, the facilitator who got everybody in their proper spots for maximum effectiveness. 

Then there was Gianna Kneepkens, a sharp shooter who swished a three-pointer every time South Carolina seemed to be making a move to close the double-digit gap.

No other team in college basketball this season designed its roster to be as veteran-dependent as UCLA, whose 12-player roster featured eight who were either seniors or graduate students. During the NCAA Tournament, UCLA Coach Cori Close’s rotation of playing time featured almost exclusively her oldest players. Those choices added pressure to Sunday’s national title showdown against South Carolina — because if the Bruins didn’t capitalize and win a title now there might not be a better chance in the foreseeable future.

It was now or never for this group of players, and UCLA won the program’s first NCAA title in a fashion        that may never happen again. The Bruins’ players, in their final year of eligibility, scored all 130 of the team’s Final Four points, and 170 consecutive points in all dating to earlier in the tournament.

“It’s truly indescribable,” Close said of her seniors in a postgame interview. “The loyalty, the steadfast spirit, their character that they’ve chosen day in and day out. I’m so humbled that they chose to commit to our mission.”

Of the six seniors or grad students who led UCLA in scoring this season, only two, Rice and Jaquez, started their careers in Westwood at UCLA. And yes, Jaquez is the kid sister of former Bruin star Jaime Jaquez, who led the men’s team to the Final Four four years ago and is now a star with the Miami Heat. He was in the stands with their parents to witness his sister’s biggest sports moment – yet. She is likely to have some more big moments in the WNBA.

Besides those two players, the rest found their way to Westwood using the brave new world of the transfer portal and NIL – name, image and likeness – money.

Betts, the Big Ten Player of the Year, was a transfer from Stanford. In 2021, Angela Dugalić, a 6-foot-4 star who played off the bench this season but was a key contributor just the same, transferred in after one season at Oregon. Charlisse Leger-Walker, who provided ball handling and play-making when Rice didn’t, transferred two years ago from Washington State. And Gianna Kneepkens arrived one year ago after transferring from Utah.

Coach Geno fouls out

Unfortunately, much of UCLA’s success over the weekend – including Friday night’s grind-it-out 51-44 slog over Texas in the semifinals – was overshadowed by an off-court incident All Ball saw coming.

In Last week’s column titled “UCLA Women Bound for Glory,” we labeled University of Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma an “arrogant, know-it-all, trash-talking” jerk.

Coach Geno has long ruled the world of women’s basketball while winning an incredible 12 national titles in the last 25 years, but we have never bought his “Big Daddy Geno knows best” act.

The mainstream media cowers at his iron-handed treatment of everyone – media, players and opposing coaches alike – but All Ball has consistently called him out on it.  

This week he very graphically proved everything we said about his tyrannical character last week – and more — was true.

It all started in the moments after South Carolina defeated UConn 62-48 in the first semifinal Friday night, thus ending the Huskies 54-game winning streak and depriving big baby Geno of his shot at another title.

When South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley – a native of North Philly who takes no shit from nobody – went to shake Coach Geno’s hand in front of her bench, he started lecturing her, admonishing her like she was some lowly scrub player who forgot to box out.

Staley was having none of it, and got all up in his grill. Assistant coaches had to separate the two combatants, but it kept going even as they were pulled apart.

Later, in his media session, Coach Geno made two demonstrably false claims while trying to justify his boorish, bullying behavior. First, he claimed that Staley had insulted him and broke protocol by skipping the traditional coach’s handshake before the game. 

ABC, to its credit, quickly rolled the tape of Staley shaking his hand before the game. And second, he claimed that a South Carolina player had been so physical with UConn star Sarah Strong that her jersey was ripped right off her chest. This time, ABC ran the footage of Strong ripping her own jersey in a fit of frustration – admittedly a crazy act — and that false claim was quickly put to bed.

As Friday night turned into Saturday, public opinion turned so swiftly against Coach Geno – thank you social media – that he was forced to issue an apology. But all that did was reveal a small, petty man who is a bad loser and can’t even own his own actions.

The prepared statement was issued by UConn, not by Coach Geno, and it never mentioned the woman he had insulted and disrespected: Coach Staley.

Here is the entire statement:   

“I want to apologize to the staff and the team at South Carolina. It was uncalled for in how I reacted. The story should be how well South Carolina played, and I don’t want my actions to detract from that. I’ve had a great relationship with their staff, and I sincerely want to apologize to them.”

It’s clear that the UConn athletic department wrote and issued the statement, not Coach Geno.

In a crazy way, all this controversy worked to UCLA’s benefit. South Carolina – and its players – were so busy defending their coach and celebrating their victory over powerhouse UConn that they weren’t mentally or emotionally prepared for a UCLA squad that was out to avenge its 34-point humiliation of a year ago. 

The result: a 28-point blowout of its own.

Almost as important: the petulant bully of women’s basketball was exposed once and for all.

Prediction: Coach Geno, now 72, will announce his retirement in the next year or two. There will be all kinds of tributes to the winningest coach in women’s hoops history, but privately most fans will be thinking somewhat differently: Good riddance.

Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. ER