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By Mallory Mattingly
The UCLA Bruins women’s basketball team took home their first National Championship on Sunday night when they beat South Carolina 79-51.
“It’s immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine,” head coach Cori Close declared, referencing Ephesians 3:20, after the game as the court flooded with confetti and her players celebrated. “It’s beyond my wildest dreams…It would be shallow without amazing and incredible people that have poured into me my whole life.”
The win made Close the “longest-tenured head coach at a single school to win a first championship,” according to Sports Spectrum.
.@CoachCoriClose celebrates with her mom after National Championship win. ❤️#WFinalFour x 🎥 ABC / @UCLAWBB pic.twitter.com/bVwptMtK4i
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessWBB) April 5, 2026
Related: Basketball Star’s March Madness Prep Begins With Prayer
Throughout her 15 year career at UCLA, Close has been on a mission to build the program by being obedient to Christ.
“It was a calling. It was the calling that God told me to do it this way,” she told ESPN’s Holly Rowe. “We always said we were gonna do it in an uncommon, transformational way.”
In the post-game press conference, Close echoed those same sentiments.
“This has been a calling, not a job,” she shared. “I’ve been saying it all day, but I don’t even know how else to say it — it’s immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine. So I’m really grateful.”
Throughout her career, Close has relied on what she learned from the late UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden.
“I remember when I was being mentored by coach John Wooden, one of the things he gave me was a sense that you could compete at the highest levels, you could master your craft, and you could do it in a transformational, character-building way,” Close said after UCLA beat Texas in the Final Four, per World Exposure Report. “I was almost losing hope that that was possible…the biggest way I can pay forward what he invested in me is to prove to other people [that] maybe I could encourage one other coach that you can do it in an uncommon, transformational way.”
“That doesn’t make you less competitive…I really just wanna maybe encourage a couple other coaches that you can do it that way…you have to stay principle-centered, and that’s the way I hope humbly to pay it forward what coach Wooden gave [as an] example to me,” she added.
It certainly looks like Close’s principled, God-centered approach has paid off. Congratulations to Close and the Bruins on their incredible win!
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