Outside Topic Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season

Outside Topic Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - Printable Version

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Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - cctop - 04-06-2026

Here's a clip from a documentary on the UCLA WBB team in which Lauren Betts talks about her struggles at Stanford:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVmE95fARQV/

I'm happy that Betts found stability and success. It's not a good look for Stanford.

Here's a link to the full documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga0OcgAn9jg

RE: Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - M T - 04-06-2026

On the other hand, I enjoyed seeing Ros & Chiney in the Final Four coverage. Good look for Stanford.

RE: Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - Griffins78 - 04-07-2026

I’ve been a season ticket holder for over 30 years and was a Varsity athlete at Stanford.

I’m also close to the family of a UCLA women’s basketball player and have gotten to know several of the families and seen Cori and the team up close and how different their program is.

When we take off our rose (or cardinal) colored glasses off and look objectively at Stanford’s Women’s Basketball the last 5+ years, especially now with 6 players transferring and the realization that our style and approach to coaching no longer works in a world where power has shifted towards the players and they don’t have to stay in a toxic environment - I see Haley, Lauren, and all the players that transferred when TVD was still coaching in a different light. I honor their courage to make the decision that for some meant giving up on a Stanford degree. And I know that UCLA isn’t buying players to win a National Championship. They want to be at UCLA and play together.

I wish we had done better for our players and I hope we can in the future.

RE: Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - BostonCard - 04-07-2026

All of what you say may be true about both Close and the Stanford coaches, but let's not pretend like money isn't a factor, if not one of the biggest factors. Cori Close has said as much:

https://www.cbssports.com/womens-college-basketball/news/ucla-cori-close-championship-title-nil/

Quote:When asked why she allowed filmmakers access to such vulnerable moments, Close candidly told Lisa Leslie on her podcast, "We got paid a lot of money to do it and that helps build my roster."

There's a lot of good stuff in that article that shows that Close did a great job pairing the financial aspects with supporting mental health of players (important for Betts, for example, who has been open about struggling with that aspect) establishing a positive team-first culture and other non-financial aspects of assembling the team. I think in today's environment having a bad environment will sink your as we are finding out, and a positive environment is necessary but unfortunately not sufficient, and if you look at the three major sports national champions: Indiana football, Michigan men's basketball, and UCLA women's basketball (aside from all being Big Ten schools) it was the combination of a coach identifying and recruiting great players and getting them to play as a team and the deep pockets needed to make sure they signed and stayed at the school.

BC

RE: Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - Treebound - 04-08-2026

This may have been heavily discussed prior, but I'm very interested to understand why Rice didn't come to Stanford. Her mother was in my class and I believe her brother also went to Stanford recently. I'm very surprised that she jumped to UCLA, but would love to know more on the background. That decision clearly was an early loss in this unraveling of the program.

RE: Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - BostonCard - 04-08-2026

Don’t know that anyone but Rice would know, but there were a string of high profile players who seriously considered Stanford and wound up going elsewhere, including Rice (UCLA), Azzi Fudd (UConn), Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame), JuJu Watkins (USC), and I am sure a number of others. There has been speculation here that at least some of that had to do with Stanford’s structured offense, which did not give guards (I think all of the players above were guards or wings) the freedom to be creative with their game. I can think of some other hypotheses: it coincided with the time that NIL and collectives were starting to come to the fore and Stanford was slow to the game, so it could easily be a money question. It also coincided with the end of Tara Vanderveer’s career and players might have been (rightfully) concerned that if they signed with TVD she would not be there for their entire career. I don’t know that we can ever know for sure (or even that there was a consistent reason for all of them); after all, they were all very highly sought after recruits, but I think repeatedly falling short makes it a ripe question for discussion.

BC

RE: Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - liveoak - 04-08-2026

(04-08-2026, 03:02 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Don’t know that anyone but Rice would know, but there were a string of high profile players who seriously considered Stanford and wound up going elsewhere, including Rice (UCLA), Azzi Fudd (UConn), Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame), JuJu Watkins (USC), and I am sure a number of others. There has been speculation here that at least some of that had to do with Stanford’s structured offense, which did not give guards (I think all of the players above were guards or wings) the freedom to be creative with their game. I can think of some other hypotheses: it coincided with the time that NIL and collectives were starting to come to the fore and Stanford was slow to the game, so it could easily be a money question. It also coincided with the end of Tara Vanderveer’s career and players might have been (rightfully) concerned that if they signed with TVD she would not be there for their entire career. I don’t know that we can ever know for sure (or even that there was a consistent reason for all of them); after all, they were all very highly sought after recruits, but I think repeatedly falling short makes it a ripe question for discussion.

BC

You can probably add Jazzy Davidson, Skylar Diggins, and Mikayla Blakes to the list of guards...I've always thought that the structured offense discouraged talented guards from coming to Stanford - that's been happening for decades. Kate's offense is very structured which may have contributed to our recruiting problems in the last few years.

RE: Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - old spanish trail - 04-08-2026

(04-08-2026, 02:45 PM)Treebound Wrote: This may have been heavily discussed prior, but I'm very interested to understand why Rice didn't come to Stanford. Her mother was in my class and I believe her brother also went to Stanford recently. I'm very surprised that she jumped to UCLA, but would love to know more on the background. That decision clearly was an early loss in this unraveling of the program.

Also, Susan Rice, her Aunt, went to Stanford and mightily tried to convince her. As I recall, she said something about wanting to travel a her own path.

RE: Lauren Betts & doc on the UCLA WBB season - jk1926 - 04-10-2026

(04-08-2026, 02:45 PM)Treebound Wrote: This may have been heavily discussed prior, but I'm very interested to understand why Rice didn't come to Stanford. Her mother was in my class and I believe her brother also went to Stanford recently. I'm very surprised that she jumped to UCLA, but would love to know more on the background. That decision clearly was an early loss in this unraveling of the program.

Kiki’s parents John and Andrea Rice and her brother Mateo all went to Yale. John and Mateo played basketball at Yale and Andrea played tennis. Her aunt Susan, John’s sister, attended Stanford and indeed hoped Kiki would follow her to Stanford. Kiki does have family in Los Angeles.

Kiki said she chose UCLA over Stanford, UConn, Arizona and Duke partly because of the opportunity to help lead UCLA to its first NCAA Final Four and win a national championship. With the addition of Lauren Betts and joined by Gabriela Jaquez, Angela Dugalic, Charlisse Leger-Walker and lastly Gianna Kneepkens, Kiki achieve her goal. Ironically the six seniors/grad students were a group of former PAC-12 players.