UCLA wins first Big Ten champi...

INDIANAPOLIS — Cori Close wanted her UCLA team to have a chance at conquering its previous adversary and, under the brightest lights of the season thus far, her squad delivered.

UCLA won its first Big Ten championship, defeating rival USC and star JuJu Watkins, 72-67, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Sunday. It was the first season in the conference for both teams after joining from the Pac-12.

No. 1 seed USC won both regular-season meetings, including an 80-67 victory on UCLA's home court eight days ago to win the Big Ten regular-season title. Close said afterward, "Absolutely, I'd love another opportunity" at the Trojans and reiterated it Saturday ahead of the matchup.

The Bruins climbed back from a 13-point second-half deficit, taking the lead off a turnover and hookshot by Janiah Barker minutes into the fourth quarter. It was their first lead since the game's first few minutes. Kiki Rice, Gabriela Jaquez and Lauren Betts all scored to build a six-point lead that felt insurmountable for a struggling USC offense that ended the game shooting 34.3% after posting a 55.6% mark in the first quarter.

Betts scored a team-high 17 points (all but four in the second half) on an efficient 7-of-10 day. She added five rebounds, four blocks and two assists to earn Big Ten tournament MVP. Rice and Jones added 13 points each. The team was 53.3% overall from the floor and 8-of-15 from 3-point range.

Offensively, it was a struggle for Watkins, the National Player of the Year contender. She had 29 points, but went 9-for-28 and 2-for-8 from 3-point range. She shot only two free throws in the second half, an aspect of her game Big Ten opponents key in on to stop. Kiki Iriafen scored only 10. No other Trojan was in double digits.

"Usually when you really commit to getting it out of JuJu's hands and defending her without fouling, she finds Kiki Iriafen," Close said. "I thought our defense on [Iriafen] may have been the most important thing.

"Let's be honest, I mean, JuJu still got 29. But when you look at the games in which they've had to make surges — even [in the semifinals] against Michigan, Kiki is such a huge part of that film."

The Bruins put pressure on Watkins, who'd scored at least 30 in each of the first two meetings, and shut down the paint. No one else could score, either. USC was held scoreless for the first 5:55 of the fourth quarter until two free throws by Iriafen ended a 16-2 UCLA run covering a stretch of more than eight minutes in the second half.

"We had one bad half of basketball in the second half," USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. "We missed shots. Then when we tried to attack and get to the rim, we didn't get to the free-throw line. It was their half of basketball."

The Trojans' first bucket in the fourth came from Watkins at the 1:12 mark to draw the deficit to four, 64-60. Watkins scored a few late, but the damage was done. The Trojans were 4-of-19 (21.1%) in the final quarter.

"We came out with the right energy, I just don't think our shots were falling and we tried to get it back, but we couldn't," said Watkins, who was named to the all-tournament team along with Iriafen. Iowa's Lucy Olsen and Michigan's Syla Swords filled out the group.

Watkins was, once again, everywhere defensively despite shots not falling. In the first quarter, she chased down a loose ball in the backcourt, catching UCLA's ball handler off guard for two USC points. Coming in on help defense, she forced Rice into a travel and minutes later a held ball on the entry pass to Betts. At the end of the second, she bounced a pass between her legs to save the rebound, though her teammates mishandled it. And to start the second half, she recovered from turning the ball over on a UCLA trap by chasing down Rice in an attempt to alter the shot.

"How she has developed into the two-way player that she is is really remarkable," Gottlieb said following USC's quarterfinal win against Nebraska. "Think about what she handles on the offensive end. We get her the ball as much as we can. There's multiple bodies draped on her. She takes a lot of contact. She's a physical player. Then we say, oh, by the way, impact the game defensively, too. She takes no breaks."

USC took its largest lead, 48-35, on a 3-pointer by Talia Von Oelhoffen that opened up the second half. The Trojans compensated for a choppy offense with more hustle, out-rebounding UCLA, 23-9, at the break.

"We lost [the toughness battle] in the first two quarters, let's be honest," Close said. "It was pretty evident. Every ball on the ground they got to first, every rebound got taken out of our hands."

The Bruins climbed back by feeding Betts, whose nine points on a perfect 3-for-3 from both the floor and the free-throw line were more than double her first-half total (4). They won the third, 17-9, to make it a 54-52 deficit heading into the fourth.