overall seed

Absolutely, this is the best team in UCLA women’s basketball history.

Not the best team in the country this year, but truly a testament to teamwork and hard work and talent retention.

Whether UCLA wins it all this season or not, the Bruins are the envy of teams everywhere, including Oklahoma State, whose season they ended with an 87-68 second-round victory Monday. Afterward, UCLA’s six seniors joined their teammates in one last victory lap around the court, waving to fans, soaking in the adoration, on their way to the Sweet 16 for the fourth consecutive season.

“Seeing a team who gets to host, a team who has stayed together, for the most part, they get to experience all the things that all of us want, and that is so incredibly rare and hard and special,” Oklahoma State coach Jacie Hoyt said.

But how much further those things will take these Bruins in the NCAA tournament after they fought off Oklahoma State?

Maybe all the way, but maybe not.

The road ahead is treacherous. And the Bruins aren’t barreling toward it with the same momentum as the teams they’re likely to face. This deep UCLA team will need to dig even deeper.

They will have Lauren Betts, though, and no one else will. UCLA’s great 6-foot-7 center and cheat code saved the day Monday, scoring 21 of her career-high 35 points in the second half, when the Bruins got tight and the Cowgirls got closer.

Not close, but closer. Much closer than UCLA’s fellow top seeds’ opponents did.

UConn beat ninth-seeded Syracuse 98-45 in a second-round game that featured a killer 31-0 run by the defending champion Huskies.

South Carolina dismissed ninth-seeded USC, 101-61.

Texas blew out eighth-seeded Oregon like a candle, 100-58, on Sunday.

Even the second-seeded Louisiana State Tigers — likely UCLA’s Elite Eight date if both teams win their way to a third consecutive NCAA tournament meeting — got in on the demolition derby Sunday. They routed seventh-seeded Texas Tech 101-47 while setting an NCAA record by scoring 100 points in their 16th game this season.

But this is not a tournament that takes into account point differential. So no harm and no foul when it comes to the scores of the Bruins’ first two wins — and the first round against California Baptist turned into a rout, 96-43, after the Bruins woke up and outscored their guests 52-9 in the second half.

What might matter is that while UConn and South Carolina, Texas and LSU delivered their best spirit- and soul- and confidence-crushing blowouts, the Lancers and the Cowgirls left Pauley Pavilion feeling good about themselves.

The 16th-seeded Lancers can tout that they trailed a top seed by just 10 at halftime. The eighth-seeded Cowgirls (24-10) can crow about outscoring the Bruins 42-41 in the second half.

“UCLA has lost one game all season, right? The majority of those wins were blowouts, like, real blowouts, and it would have been really easy for us to fold after that first quarter,” said Hoyt, referencing the fact that UCLA beat teams by an average of 28.9 points per game this season, fourth-best in the nation.

“But we never did. They were tough and had a resilience and a grit to them that I was really proud to coach.”

That the Bruins (33-1) couldn’t put more significant distance between themselves and a physical Cowgirls team posed some questions about why adjustments didn’t come quick enough, UCLA coach Cori Close said, taking accountability for her part of that. She also saw her players start to let calls and miscommunications frustrate them: “I didn’t think our next-play speed was as good as it has been, and it affects you,” she said.

UCLA coach Cori Close waves to the crowd after Monday’s win over Oklahoma State in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

That doesn’t inspire additional confidence in the Bruins’ path forward. It’s a thorny gauntlet created by seeding rules that bar conference opponents from playing in the Elite Eight — and that could require UCLA, as the No. 2 overall seed, to beat three of the top-five seeded teams if it’s going to win a national championship for the first time since the Bruins won the AIAW title in 1978.

Close hasn’t quibbled with her team’s seeding despite its impressive 31-1 regular-season record against a loaded schedule. But she said Monday she doesn’t like the route that’s been drawn up for her team.

In Sacramento on Friday, the Bruins will play Minnesota, a familiar foe from the Big Ten — one of a dozen conference teams that earned NCAA tournament bids — whom they defeated 76-58 on Jan. 14.

But after that, to reach the championship game the No. 2 team in the nation could meet LSU (the fifth overall seed in the tournament), followed possibly by Texas (No. 3 overall). And then, of course, they’d likely meet No. 1, undefeated UConn in the final, where the Huskies would be trying to win a second consecutive title.

An unenviable assignment, even for a team that seems to have it all.

“You know what does bother me?” Close said. “That the No. 1 and No. 2 overall seeds are not being rewarded because of a guideline that you can’t play a person in your conference in the regional finals. That is an antiquated, poor rule that advantages the wrong teams and the people who haven’t done the work.”

But on Monday, while saying a victorious goodbye to Pauley Pavilion, the Bruins were still mostly unbothered.

“I told ‘em in the locker room,” Close said, “we can talk about your wins and losses all day, but that will always pale in comparison to the way that you’ve affected this community, the way that you’ve touched people’s hearts, the way that you’ve grown as young women.”

Above a muddled Southland college basketball landscape, a heartwarming, heartstopping story has arisen.

In a winter filled with the unhappy buzz of screaming coaches and quitting players, a beautiful noise has appeared.

It comes from the most dominant college basketball team in Westwood in three decades.

It is directed by the coaching curator of the memory of John Wooden.

It is led by the most impressive UCLA post player since then-Lew Alcindor.

If they were men, they would have been in the national headlines for the last six months. But from those shadows they have emerged stronger, more connected and loudly prepared to bring home a long-awaited national championship.

UCLA guard Kiki Rice drives under pressure from Iowa guard Chazadi Wright during the Big Ten tournament finals on Sunday in Indianapolis.

(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)

Listen up, that roar at your door is the UCLA women’s basketball team, bursting on to the national headlines Sunday after delivering the kind of Big Ten tournament title beating that sounds, well, fake.

They defeated ninth-ranked Iowa 96-45. They won the title game in arguably the country’s deepest conference by 51 points.

Fifty-one points. Fifty-one points! Who wins a game of such import by 51 points?

A team that should be the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament, that’s who.

Seriously, when officials reveal the women’s March Madness bracket next weekend, even though one-loss UCLA is ranked second behind defending champion and unbeaten Connecticut, the Bruins should be the top-line No. 1 team.

They have won 25 straight games, all but two by double digits, against a much tougher schedule than the one faced by UConn.

Yes, the Bruins’ one loss is to Texas, but the Longhorns just won the SEC and are going to be another No. 1 seed. And yes, the Bruins lost to UConn by 34 points in last season’s national semifinals, but the Huskies lost Paige Bueckers and the Bruins just got deeper and better and more committed.

By earning the No. 1 overall seed, the Bruins would have a smoother ride to the finals, where a UConn rematch for the national championship seems destined.

The Bruins deserve it. The Bruins have earned it. Were you watching the carnage at Indianapolis’ Gainsbridge Fieldhouse Sunday? If so, you probably turned the channel after 15 minutes. Maybe sooner.

“What they’ve done this year has been extremely impressive,” said Iowa coach Jan Jensen after the throttling. “I think you saw a lot of senior leadership on their end, a team that’s been on a mission since the Final Four last year.”

UCLA center Lauren Betts shoots over Iowa guard Kylie Feuerbach during Big Ten tournament title game Sunday in Indianapolis.

(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)

On Sunday, it was a mission of mauling. The Hawkeyes took the lead with a quick three-pointer before the Bruins reeled off 13 straight points while holding Iowa to two total baskets in a first quarter that ended with the Bruins holding a 17-point lead.

For the next three quarters, the Bruins made the Hawkeyes look like a grade-school team, not a program that reached the national championship games twice in the last three years.

No, Caitlin Clark isn’t walking through that door. Not that she would have helped much. These Bruins overwhelmed the Hawkeyes by displaying every necessary strength required to take the final step and finish the job next month in Scottsdale.

“I just want to say thank you to the incredible players that really fulfilled their mission and stayed committed to the hard character qualities that we knew we needed to make this kind of run,” Close said.

It helps that they have six veterans who will be taken in the next WNBA draft. It also helps that Close will be steering them into her 10th tournament in 15 coaching seasons, she’s been here enough to know all the madness moves.

In search of the school’s second women’s basketball national title — and first in 48 years — they are doing everything right.

UCLA guard Kiki Rice celebrates with a trophy after receiving the Big Ten tournament most outstanding player honors.

(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)

They play near-perfect team basketball.

On Sunday they set a Big Ten tournament record with 34 assists on 40 baskets, the highlight being an over-the-head backward pass from Angela Dugalic to Kiki Rice in the fourth quarter.

“This group has the potential to do whatever it wants,” said Rice.

They are deeper than any team in the country.

They won by 51 points and their unquestionably best player, Lauren Betts, took all of nine shots. Lauren was even outscored by her little sister Sienna, who Lauren wildly cheered while standing in front of the bench.

The tournament most outstanding player was not Lauren Betts, but Rice, who wasn’t the leading scorer but had eight assists and three steals and didn’t crack a smile until she heard her teammates on the trophy stage chanting her name.

“She’s one of the most selfless people I’ve ever played with,” Lauren Betts said of Rice. “She really could [not] care less about all the attention. She just wants to win.”

In all, nine different players scored for UCLA, and when is the last time you’ve seen a scoresheet so full in a game of such magnitude?

Oh yeah, they can also shoot. All of them can shoot, as they made half of their 26 three-point attempts, led by Gianna Kneepkens’ four treys and team-high 19 points.

The Bruins could have used Kneepkens last season against UConn, but she was playing for Utah. She’s here now, and that could be the difference.

Compared to last spring’s surprise Final Four run, everything feels different. These Bruins know they belong on this big stage, know how to win here and calmly and precisely play as if they know they can pull this off.

During Sunday’s postgame celebration, the three Bruins who briefly, but famously, joined the UCLA dance team during a recent men’s game repeated the dance on the Indianapolis court. They’re feeling it. Their fans are feeling it. Soon an entire city could be feeling it.

“I’m joyful,” said Close, and the dance is just beginning.