UCLA Rallies From 10 Down to Reach Women's Final Four, Topping Duke 70-58

Lauren Betts was seething at halftime. Down eight to Duke at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, the 6-foot-7 UCLA senior had been subjected to double and triple teams, held to eight points, and watched her team commit 12 turnovers in 20 minutes. She had a message for herself: wake up.

She did. Betts finished with 23 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks on Sunday, becoming the first player to post a 20-10-5 line in an Elite Eight game or later since Brittney Griner accomplished it in the 2012 national championship. UCLA rallied past Duke 70-58, punching its ticket to the women's Final Four for the second consecutive season.

"I was pretty mad, didn't like how that first half happened," Betts said. "I could have been a lot more effective. A game like this you got to take yourself out of your head. This is the Elite Eight and my senior season is on the line, so got to wake up a little bit."

The first half belonged entirely to Duke. The Blue Devils' guard trio of Ashlon Jackson, Taina Mair and Riley Nelson combined to score or assist on 35 of Duke's 39 first-half points. Mair shot 5-of-6 from the field for 12 points before the break, Nelson added 11, and the scheme of doubling and tripling Betts generated an unusually high volume of turnovers. UCLA committed 12 by intermission, just six shy of the team's season-high, and no Bruins player reached double figures. Angela Dugalic led the bench with six points. The deficit stood at eight, 39-31, at the half.

The second half was an entirely different game. With 2:40 remaining in the third quarter, Gianna Kneepkens hit a 3-pointer to give UCLA a 47-45 lead. The Bruins then held Duke without a basket for the final six minutes of the quarter, outscoring the Blue Devils 20-8 in the period to seize control. UCLA outscored Duke 39-19 across the full second half.

Duke made one late push. Mair hit a 3-pointer 1:30 into the fourth quarter to pull within six, but UCLA held firm and closed out the 12-point victory. Mair finished with 21 points, seven rebounds and six assists; those six assists gave her 201 on the season, matching the Duke single-season record originally set by Chelsea Gray in 2011-12. Gray was in the building to watch the mark fall.

The win was the sixth career NCAA tournament double-double for Betts, whose second-half transformation anchored a comeback for a No. 1-seeded Bruins squad that entered the day at 34-1.

UCLA returns to the Final Four a year after reaching it for the first time in program history, only to suffer a blowout loss to eventual national champion UConn. The Bruins are still chasing the school's first NCAA women's national title; the program's lone equivalent championship came at the AIAW level in 1978. Their next opponent will be the winner of Texas and Michigan, with the game set for Phoenix on Friday.

When the confetti dropped at Golden 1 Center, the Bruins were dancing.