UCLA’s NCAA-Winning Coach Cori Close Has Close Ties to UC Santa Barbara

The joyful reaction to UCLA’s winning the NCAA women’s basketball championship on Easter Sunday reverberated from Phoenix to Westwood to Santa Barbara.

Bruins head coach Cori Close spent her formative years in college basketball as UCSB’s point guard from 1989 to 1993, and she started climbing up the coaching ladder as a Gaucho assistant during a nine-year run (1995-2004) that endeared women’s basketball to the community.

Mark French, UCSB’s head coach during that span, took delight in seeing Close’s Bruins dismantle South Carolina, a betting favorite going into the championship game, by a 79-51 score.

“The first half was the best I’ve seen them play,” French said. “It was a clinic of great basketball, male or female, pick a gender.”

The legendary John Wooden, whose UCLA men’s teams won 10 NCAA titles, once picked a gender when he said: “I love the purity of women’s basketball and how fundamentally sound the players are.”

Wooden befriended Close when she was a UCLA graduate student, and for 15 years until his death in 2010, she was a frequent visitor to his home, tapping into his holistic and wholesome view of life.

In 2011, UCLA hired Close, then a Florida State assistant, to take over the women’s basketball program. It took her 15 years to lead the Bruins to their very first NCAA championship. She might have learned some of that persistence from Wooden; it was not until his 16th season at UCLA that his men won their first title in 1964.

Close’s top assistant throughout her tenure has been Tony Newnan. He was a UCSB student recruited by French to play on a male scout team against the women. Newnan became manager of the Gaucho women’s team and then assistant coach, known for his creative offensive ideas. He was the top assistant to Westmont College’s Kirsten Moore before Close brought him to UCLA. Tasha Brown, another one-time Gaucho assistant, later joined the Bruins staff as a defensive coach.

Close, mirroring the sentiments of both French and Wooden, has often said that building character is as important to her as winning games. As she put it this year, “The talent is our floor, but our character will determine our ceiling.”

That she has succeeded with the Bruins was evident to many. “They showed so much class,” French observed. “Talk about being proud of women’s basketball — not only how they played, but how they comport themselves, what they learned about being great women — partially by playing basketball.” 

I remember Close being part of two great basketball games when the Gaucho women held their heads high after losing battles.

They made their first March Madness appearance in 1992. (During that season, in December of 1991, they defeated UCLA 78-70.) A victory over Houston — Close sank 11 of 11 free throws to hold off the Cougars — sent the Gauchos to a second-round game at Stanford, which had one of coach Tara VanDerveer’s strongest teams.

Stanford led by 10 at halftime, but when Close made a three-pointer late in the second half, UCSB shaved Stanford’s lead to 71-68. Aided by a spate of fouls against the Gauchos — leaving them with four players on the court in the final minute — the Cardinal survived, 82-73. The Gauchos had given Stanford, which won the NCAA title, its closest game of the tournament.

In 2004, with Close as French’s associate head coach, UCSB made it to the Sweet 16 against two-time defending national champion Connecticut at Hartford. The Huskies struggled to shake off the Gauchos, eventually winning, 63-55. It was UConn’s closest game of the tournament, as coach Geno Auriemma and star player Diana Taurasi won their third title.

Last year, Close took UCLA to its first Final Four and a semifinal clash with Connecticut. It was not close. The Huskies won, 85-51. They went on to their 12th championship, while the Bruins took it as a test of their character heading into the 2025-26 season with all of their top players returning as seniors.

UCLA lost only to Texas during the regular season and turned the tables on the Longhorns in the Final Four, winning a rugged semifinal, 51-44, a physical game that Close forthrightly described as more like rugby than basketball. The Bruins’ 6’7″ post player Lauren Betts made the play of the tournament, an immaculate block of an attempted layup by Madison Booker when Texas was surging in the final minute.

Close and the Bruins, brimming with confidence, might have relished another showdown with Connecticut, winners of 54 straight games, but South Carolina upset the Huskies, 62-48, in the other semifinal. Auriemma, who was outcoached by Dawn Staley, seemingly lost his mind in a display of poor sportsmanship that prompted an apology a day later.

There was no drama between Close and Staley on Sunday. It was just a superb performance by UCLA’s solid seniors, including Camarillo’s Gabriela Jaquez, Betts, and Kiki Rice. Close’s women picked the best time to live up to one of John Wooden’s maxims: “Make each day your masterpiece.”