PHOENIX (AP) — Lauren Betts hit the play button over and over, forcing herself to watch last year’s Final Four blowout loss to UConn 10 times during the offseason.
The two-time All-American made sure there wasn’t a repeat performance in this year’s Final Four, swooping in for the biggest play in a game that sends the Bruins into the NCAA national championship game for the first time.
Heeding her coaches’ persistent advice to sprint back on defense, Betts swatted fellow All-American Madison Booker with 20 seconds left, allowing UCLA to withstand a late charge by Texas for a 51-44 win in the Final Four on Friday night.
“When that play happened, I really have so much confidence that every time she is in a matchup, she’s going to find a way to alter, block, scare somebody from doing that,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “I just think she’s spectacular.”
She needed to be.
Motivated by the beatdown in their first Final Four a year ago, Betts and the Bruins (36-1) dominated their way to another national semifinal with the best season in program history.
A chance at a first national championship game appearance had to go through the only team to beat them this season.
Texas was overpowering in the first meeting, but the Bruins turned the bully tables on the Longhorns (35-4), shutting down All-American Madison Booker while building a 13-point lead midway through the fourth quarter.
The Longhorns are one of the nation’s best defensive teams and flexed their D during a 12-2 run that cut UCLA’s lead to 47-44.
Betts swatted the Texas run to halt.
With the Longhorns on the break and Booker attacking the basket, Betts backpedaled and timed her jump just right. She blocked Booker’s shot, gathered the ball herself and Kiki Rice hit two clinching free throws, sending Close’s crew into the title game.
“As soon as I saw her getting downhill I was like ‘Alright, please block this. Don’t let her score,’” Betts said.
Betts’ big block and the Bruins grinding win earn them a spot Sunday’s title game against South Carolina, the three-time national champions who ended reigning champion UConn’s undefeated season and left Huskies’ coach Geno Auriemma fuming.
So was Booker after a brutal finish to what was otherwise a stellar season. She hit her first shot, missed the next 17 and finished with six points on 3-of-23 shooting.
“It did surprise me when I couldn’t get out of my funk because every shot I put up it felt like it was going to be money,” Booker said. “I wish a few more fell in, not just for me but for my teammates, too.”
Same for Texas coach Vic Schaefer after another agonizing Final Four loss.
He twice lost in the national title game at Mississippi State — once on a buzzer beater — and watched the Longhorns clank their way out of their second straight Final Four appearance.
The Longhorns got off to a brutal start with six points in the first quarter, shot 38% from the floor overall and 2 for 9 from 3-point range in the third-lowest scoring in Final Four history.
The chance at a second national title stretches to another year — 40 years and counting.
“We feel like, in our locker room, we let one get away,” Schaefer said. “I feel like this one will haunt me as the coach probably until the day I die.”
In the teams’ first meeting, Texas dominated early and held on late for a 76-65 win on Nov. 26 in Las Vegas.
The rematch was more like a wrestling match, players hitting the floor and coaches screaming for fouls that weren’t called — just like in the first Final Four game.
UCLA dominated the first quarter to lead by eight. Texas tightened the screws in the second, limiting the Bruins to six points — the 28th opponent they’ve held to single digits in a quarter to pull within 20-17 by halftime.
Betts turned out to be a huge difference maker.
The 6-foot-7 center was held to a season-low eight points the first go-round against Texas, but had some success early in the national semifinals by attacking before the double teams arrived. She continued to produce while her fellow All-American labored, finishing 7 of 10 from the floor with 11 rebounds and three blocked shots — none bigger than the late one against Booker that all but secured UCLA’s 29th straight win since the loss to Texas.