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UCLA's Gabriela Jaquez celebrates as she cuts down a piece of the net following the Bruins' victory over South Carolina in the NCAA championship game Sunday. (Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Gabriela Jaquez, tone-setter. Culture-setter. Scene-setter.
Firestarter.
Elite job-finisher — around the rim and in life.
UCLA’s first NCAA women’s basketball championship win was more coronation than ballgame, a 79-51 blowout of monumental proportions against perennial power Southern California.
Fittingly, it starred one of the members of the Bruins' royal family: a Jaquez hooper stealing her opponents’ souls from the outset.
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UCLA's Gabriela Jaquez drives ahead of South Carolina's Tessa Johnson (5) during the first half of the NCAA championship game Sunday. (Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
All Gabs, no brakes. Going downhill. Smirking gamely all the while.
“Relentless,” Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said. “Relentless.”
Definitely one of those “uncommon, courageous women” that UCLA coach Cori Close sought to play in her program.
“Living her dream,” said former UCLA star Jaime Jaquez Jr., whom Bruins fans might be thinking of now as “Gabriela’s brother” instead of the other way around.
Jaime led the UCLA men to the Final Four in 2021 and has gone on to make his name in the NBA as a contributor on the Miami Heat, including scoring 32 points against the Washington Wizards on Saturday as a prelude to Gabriela’s big game — which he flew to witness in person, to Gabriela’s great delight.
Read more:UCLA crushes South Carolina to win NCAA women's basketball national championship
“Of course I have bragging rights,” she sing-songed postgame. “I’m a champion.”
That's largely because of how high Gabriela was able to crank up the heat from the jump Sunday. In her first five minutes of championship action, she had five points, four rebounds and two assists and UCLA had a 13-4 lead that it wouldn’t think about relinquishing.
By the time she was subbed out after her second three-pointer of the game, UCLA had a 79-46 lead with 2:52 to play — and as just the fifth player in NCAA history to have collected 20 points (she had 21), 10 rebounds and five assists in a national championship game.
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UCLA's Gabriela Jaquez celebrates after scoring while being fouled in the first quarter against South Carolina on Sunday. (Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
That puts her in company with women’s basketball superstars Sarah Strong, Breanna Stewart, Chamique Holdsclaw and Staley, the former Team USA and Virginia point guard.
Gabriela had WNBA star Caitlin Clark posting on X: “Jaquez going crazy.”
And the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ L.A. sports-loving bassist Flea chiming in there, too: “Gotta love the Jaquez family! Go Bruins.”
That's for their impact on the court, but how about this: In 2023, the UCLA Latino Alumni Association and UCLA Alumni Association announced the Jaquez Family Scholarship Fund, which offers financial support for freshmen and transfer students.
The truest of blue-and-gold bloods, Gabriela decided in third grade that she wanted to play for UCLA. And then “decided” with her close-knit teammates Sunday, “to be national champions.”
Read more:UCLA star Lauren Betts rewards fans who helped change her life
“This was the plan and we accomplished it,” said the 6-foot guard from Camarillo, who will be the third player of Mexican heritage to play in the WNBA.
Gabriela joined Lauren Betts and her college roommate Kiki Rice on the all-tournament team — Rice and Gabriela arrived at UCLA as freshmen, intent on taking the program where it hadn’t been before.
They reached the program’s first NCAA Final Four last season. They reached — and won — the first NCAA championship game this year.
They go out on a program-record 31-game winning streak, having gone 14-0 at Pauley Pavilion in their final season. By winning their final game by the third-most points in NCAA women’s championship game history, dancing in the locker room to celebrate beating, fittingly, another ’SC.
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UCLA's (from left) Charlisse Leger-Walker, Gabriela Jaquez and Lauren Betts dance on stage after the Bruins' win in the NCAA women's basketball national championship game on Sunday. (Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
“Coming in as a freshman, that was the plan — to cut down nets,” Gabriela said. “I pictured this moment many times, being a national champion, to do it with this group it means everything…
“To finish out my career with a national championship … Really. Does. Mean. Everything.”
Also: “Job’s finished,” Gabriela said. “Job is finished.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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