Well, what has felt inevitable for much of this season has indeed come to fruition. Those Final Four teams from last year? Those teams that mostly stayed in the Top Four all of this season and became this year’s 1-seeds? They’re back, all of em.

Luckily for us, one of those teams resides in the Big Ten.

Last Week’s Hoopla: An Up, Then Down Weekend

UCLA is into the final weekend after two more double-digit victories. The Bruins are now on a 29-game win streak with two games decided by less than 10 points in the span.

The first was against this newsletter’s beloved Gophers, who fought hard in the first half before the Bruins took over and won by 24. Kiki Rice — who dominated the regular season matchup between these teams — again led the way with 21 points, while Lauren Betts finished with 16 points and five blocks. It was also the start of what ended up being a terrific set of games for Angela Dugalić, who added 13 points and 10 rebounds off the bench.

Minnesota struggled to score throughout the game, and once UCLA found an offensive rhythm in the second half, the Gophers did not have the firepower to keep up. Grace Grochokski (12 points) and Sophie Hart (11) were the long players in double figures.

The loss ended a tremendous, program-shifting level season for Minnesota. It was the best in the Dawn Plitzuweit era and the best Minnesota team in at least 20 years. Many long-time pieces are departing, but the Gophers have a strong recruiting class coming in and have the momentum going in the right direction.

UCLA’s Elite Eight matchup was with Duke, who stunned LSU behind an all-timer of a buzzer-beater by Ashlon Jackson. It was a great win by the Blue Devils, but it ended up favoring UCLA who I think would have had a harder time with the Tigers overall.

The Bruins did what they have done a lot as of late: Started slow, figured out their opponent, then completely smothered them in the second half. Duke led by 8 at halftime, then UCLA outscored the Blue Devils 39-19 the rest of the way for another relatively comfortable win.

Two things particularly excited me about this win: UCLA’s defensive effort, and Lauren Betts. The Bruins held Duke’s star, Toby Fournier, to only 10 points thanks in part to early foul trouble. They also completely took Jackson (0 points, 0/8 FG) out of the game. Duke shot 1 of 13 from three and were unable to do much of anything once UCLA took control.

Betts finished this game with 23 points, 10 rebounds and, for the second time in three days, five blocks. She has a very patient way of getting involved, but she’s been truly dominant when UCLA has needed it. Dugalić was the only other Bruin in double figures with 15 points, six rebounds and four assists.

It was an off game for Rice (2 of 10) and Duke contained the wing threats of Gabriela Jaquez and Gianna Kneepkens (16 total points) well. That meant Betts had to take over, which she had no problem obliging. UCLA will need that version of her, as well as the best version of their entire rotation, to compete with its next competition.

Michigan saw what that competition looked like, but not before the Wolverines had a tremendous performance to get to the Elite Eight in the first place. After trailing 15-9 in the first quarter, not scoring their first points of the game until about six minutes in, the Wolverines outscored Louisville 62-37 in the final three fames to earn a dominant Sweet 16 win.

Both Olivia Olson (19 points) and Syla Swords (16) led the way offensively, while Te’Yala Delfosse (10 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks) played some significant minutes off the bench. I was particularly impressed with the lineups involving her and Kendall Dudley that felt like they completely turned this game in favor of the Wolverines.

The result was Michigan’s second ever trip to the Elite Eight, both under Kim Barnes Arico. The Wolverines then died at the hands of Texas.

Similarly to the Louisville game, Michigan started this game with a lid on the basket. This time the lid never came off. The Wolverines finished the game shooting 22.8% from the field and 13.3% from deep. The Longhorns started the game on fire and eventually cooled off to a more lukewarm temperature, but the defense was so overwhelming that it didn’t matter. The final was 77-41, led by 19 points from Madison Booker and 13 assists by Rori Harmon.

It’s a sad way for this Wolverines team’s season to end. Michigan has clearly proven capable of staying with the best of the best — I likely don’t need to remind anyone of those three-point losses — but Texas has played this tournament truly on fire and the defensive physicality completely took over this game. Michigan was missing layups, it wasn’t able to win the rebounding battle and it was an ugly final defeat.

This Michigan team is, of course, led primarily by multiple sophomore stars who I can only hope come back for another round. I will miss having Brooke Quarles Daniels in this conference so deeply, she is a one-of-a-kind type of defensive and rebounding engine for her size.

This leads us back to UCLA, who will be the third Big Ten team this tournament to try and take down the Longhorns. Texas also faced Oregon in the Round of 32 and has won those two games a combined 177-99.

Texas has also played UCLA before, and gave the Bruins their only loss of the season on Nov. 26. Here’s what I said about a potential rematch when previewing the whole tournament two weeks ago:

Truthfully, I don’t think I would pick UCLA to win this game right now in this very moment, and that’s strictly on the way Texas has been playing. The Longhorns over the last seven games — Alabama, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Missouri State, Oregon, Kentucky and Michigan — have won by an average of 25.1 PPG. They have scored above 76 in every game and have held every opponent below 68, and that’s a quality list of opponents in that span.

I do think keeping Texas on the perimeter is important, and if that combines with strong containment of Booker and a less-turnover-heavy game, UCLA has the players and the ability on the interior to avoid getting bullied out of the game the way Michigan was. Texas did struggle with the three-ball against the Wolverines, going only 3 of 19, but Vic Schaefer has them playing such composed basketball that it is very hard to rattle someone like Harmon or Booker into taking bad shots.

The big key for UCLA has to be the start. It so often feels like the Bruins have come out flat in the first halves of this tournament, even in the Elite Eight where they were down double-digits in the second quarter.

Here’s the quarter-by-quarter margins for UCLA through the first two weekends:

While some of the first quarters have been solid, especially with a +15 first against Oklahoma State, the second quarter efforts have allowed teams to either hang around or, in Duke’s instance, double its lead.

The Bruins have been dominant in the second half but that wouldn’t be enough against this Texas group. We also know this because it already wasn’t enough against Texas, when UCLA’s quarters were -10, -10, +5, +4. I hope to see the UCLA team that came out ready to destroy Iowa before it even began in the Big Ten Championship (22-5 first quarter), or else it could be a similar fate.

For both sides, Betts is going to be the focus, and she’s talented enough to overcome that extra pressure and still get plenty of volume. I think UCLA needs big performances from everyone, but Rice and Kneepkens stand out to me, the former for getting to the basket and the latter on stretching Texas’ defense out. Dugalić playing as well as she has been for another few games would also be a massive boost off the bench.

This should be a heavyweight bout of a game, and if UCLA gets through it I’ll come back here to discuss whoever awaits them in the championship game (I still think that will be UConn).

Note: I will be traveling to Chicago this weekend, so let’s call it 99% likely I will be here with a weekend story if UCLA takes down Texas

A shoutout is in order for our lovely Wisconsin Badgers. The Big Ten chaos agents got a bid to the WBIT and did not take it for granted, earning three victories before falling in the semis to Columbia.

Because this is the 25-26 Wisconsin team, of course these victories were all by single digits — Wisconsin hasn’t won by double digits this calendar year after all — and included just a touch of extreme and complete insanity.

The Oregon State win to open the tournament was a low-scoring battle that a late Kyrah Daniels three helped to decide. The Badgers then upset Miami (FL) behind 23 points from Destiny Howell and double-doubles by both Kyrah Daniels (14 points, 13 rebounds) and Gift Uchenna (13 points, 11 rebounds).

After that came Harvard. The Crimson led 56-49 with 39 seconds to go and had a 99.5% chance to win via Bart Torvik. Daniels immediately hit a three, Wisconsin forced a turnover and Dorja Zaja hit a layup to get it within two. The Badgers forced another Harvard turnover, Howell hit a layup to tie it with 11 seconds to go, and Wisconsin finished the deal in overtime. See, normal stuff.

While the run did not end in the Big Ten’s third straight WBIT crown (Illinois, Minnesota), it did get Wisconsin to 16 wins on the season, the most the Badgers have had in 15 years. Not bad at all for the first year of the Robin Pingeton era.

Photo Credit: UCLA Women’s Basketball, Twitter

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