Good things can take time. Sometimes patience can help reap massive rewards. UCLA basketball has seen this before. UCLA legend John Wooden didn’t win an NCAA national championship until his 16th season as head coach of the Bruins before collecting 10 national championships with UCLA.
Could Cori Close be following a similar blueprint? While Close hasn’t captured a national title yet, she is appearing in her first Final Four with UCLA in Year 9 with the Bruins. Close has already developed a legacy with UCLA, becoming the all-time winningest coach in program history, and is currently 321-142 with nine NCAA Tournament berths.
While Coach Wooden never had a losing season with UCLA, it’s not as though Close accepted a culture of losing. The Bruins finished with 16 losses in three of her first four seasons, but since then UCLA hasn’t lost more than 13 games in a season.
Close does benefit from an immensely talented roster, but most great coaches become great by having tremendous talent at their disposal. Even with Kiki Rice and Lauren Betts, the path to a championship won’t be easy, Close will be squaring off against UConn, which has a legendary coach in its own right with Geno Auriemma, who has 11 NCAA titles to his name and owns a lot of legitimate comparisons to Wooden for all the obvious reasons.
If Close and the Bruins are able to advance against UConn, they’ll face either Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks or Vic Schaefer and the Texas Longhorns in the national title game this coming Sunday. While Close’s accomplishments don’t yet hold a candle to Wooden’s, it would have been hard to call Wooden one of the best coaches of all time after his first decade and a half with UCLA.
John Wooden first season at UCLA
John Wooden came to UCLA for the 1948-1949 season. Wooden won 22 games in Year 1, but didn’t make the NCAA Tournament.
John Wooden was decent but not dominant in his first decade at UCLA
As the 1950s ran their course, John Wooden made three NCAA Tournaments at UCLA, in 1950, 1952, and 1956. However, he did not make any Final Fours. Keep in mind that the NCAA Tournament was very small in this era of history. It was hard to get there.
Pete Newell
Pete Newell of Cal was John Wooden’s nemesis in West Coast college basketball. Newell’s Cal teams were the best in the West in the late 1950s, winning the 1959 national championship and making the national championship game in 1960. Newell was just 44 years old at the end of the 1960 season. He figured to remain an obstacle for Wooden. However, burned out and not in great health, Newell stepped away from coaching. He became one of the great basketball teachers of all time. His big man camps were legendary in the sport. However, game coaching wore him out, and that was the big break John Wooden used to attain elite status at UCLA and in college basketball.
1962 Final Four
John Wooden, 14 years after accepting the UCLA job in 1948, reached his first Final Four. Cori Close knows this and can very convincingly tell herself and her UCLA players that the best is yet to come for the Bruins.
1964 Final Four
UCLA did not win the 1962 Final Four, but it broke through in its second attempt in 1964, beating Michigan in the semifinals and Duke in the final. We will see if Cori Close can win it all in her first Final Four trip.
1967 Final Four
After winning a second national title in 1965 but falling short in 1966, the heart of the UCLA dynasty began in 1967 with the first of seven consecutive national championships. It took 19 years for John Wooden to make UCLA a true superpower. That should put Cori Close’s career in perspective.
Betts Sisters could be the new Alcindor and Walton
If Lauren and Sienna Betts can lead UCLA to multiple national championships, they will be remembered within UCLA women’s basketball as the big-tree dynastic centerpieces akin to what Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton were for John Wooden and the men’s basketball program.
Cori Close versus the dynasty from UConn
It is poetically appropriate that UCLA, in search of its own national championship ascent, has to go through UConn on Friday at the Women’s Final Four. Geno Auriemma has 11 national championships. He is to the women’s game what John Wooden was to the men’s game. UConn won four straight national titles from 2013 through 2016 and made a difficult thing look easy, much like Wooden and UCLA from 1967 through 1973. If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. That’s what Cori Close will try to do as UCLA women’s basketball enters its first Final Four game.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: Cori Close reaches first Final Four in nine years, four years faster than John Wooden
Reporting by Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
