It was a magical sibling pairing this past season for Sienna and Lauren Betts with the UCLA Bruins this past season, which ended with an NCAA title but it nearly never happened.
Lauren Betts, the older sister, committed to Stanford and played her freshman season with the Cardinal before jumping into the transfer portal. By the time Lauren entered the transfer portal, UCLA was already working on recruiting Sienna Betts, who wasn’t fond of the idea of her big sister beating her to Westwood.
Lauren Betts, who’s currently in her rookie season in the WNBA with the Washington Mystics, spoke about the siblings’ journey to UCLA on the Bird’s Eye View podcast hosted by WNBA great Sue Bird.
“Mad. So mad,” Lauren Betts said of how Sienna felt when she heard that she was transferring to UCLA. “She came for a visit and I remember begging her to come.”
It wasn’t the highest scoring season for Sienna Betts, as she came off the bench of an extraordinarily deep UCLA squad, but Betts did earn some hardware, helping the Bruins win the national championship as a freshman.
Sienna needed some extra convincing, so Lauren created a slideshow presentation to recruit her sister.
“Reasons why you should come to UCLA. And I put how she’s going to have so much fun, we’re going to have so much fun going out. Besides the basketball, you get to be playing at UCLA with your big sister, who’s a senior, I can show you around all the good spots,” Betts said. “She starts fully like breaking down crying in the middle of the meeting and all of the coaches are tearing up.”
Betts’ parents would inform Lauren shortly after that Sienna was going to join her at UCLA, which was a surprise to Lauren but the two sisters took full advantage of their season together, putting together the best season in UCLA women’s basketball history.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: How Lauren Betts helped recruit Sienna Betts to join her at UCLA
Reporting by Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
