This might be sweetest season of all for UCLA women’s basketball

There could be something sweeter this time around.

Another deep foray into the NCAA Tournament could finally produce the special ending the UCLA women’s basketball team has long sought.

What’s the difference between this batch of Bruins and its predecessors who reached the Sweet 16?

The six seniors who might be taken in the first round of the WNBA draft. A knockdown 3-point shooter in Gianna Kneepkens. A second point guard in Charlisse Leger-Walker. Another Betts sister. More savvy versions of veterans Kiki Rice, Lauren Betts and Gabriela Jaquez.

“We’ve got a lot of vets and a lot of old people on this team,” Betts told the California Post on Wednesday, “so I feel like once you have that maturity and that experience, it just helps so much. Once you get into those pressure situations, you’re just a lot more equipped and a lot more poised, and I feel like we really need that.”

It doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to say this team is built for March — and possibly beyond.

The Bruins’ fourth consecutive Sweet 16 appearance — matching a previous streak under coach Cori Close from 2016–19 — could produce a championship breakthrough.

What’s widely considered the best team in program history can take its next step toward a title Friday afternoon. The top-seeded Bruins (33–1) will face fourth-seeded Minnesota (24–8) in a Big Ten rematch on a bigger stage — a regional semifinal at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.

“We hope that every year when you have a core group that grows together,” Close told The Post, “that they’re adding to their toolbox not only individually — about what it means to handle pressure, what does it mean to minimize distractions, how are these rounds different? — but also collectively, they know what is required of a team to be present, focused; what is required of executing a scouting report, you know, it’s just a lot more people, a lot more distractions, a lot more things vying for your time.

“Just like I have a responsibility to make adjustments every year from what I learn from that experience, so do they, and they have done that collectively.”

Rice and Jaquez have been a part of all four recent Sweet 16 runs, with Betts joining them for the last three after spending her freshman season at Stanford.

Never have they been as well equipped as they are now.

The addition of Kneepkens — a transfer from Utah — provides a shooting guard whose every 3-pointer is basically a coin flip. She’s shooting 43.7% from long range and is equally dangerous with her midrange jumpers.

Leger-Walker has earned a nickname as “The Connector” for her ability to bring teammates together on and off the court. She’s a trusted voice, a willing listener and a top-level passer who elevates her team’s ball movement.

Freshman Sienna Betts presents double trouble whenever she’s on the court alongside her big sister, the siblings each logging a double-double in the first round of the NCAA Tournament against Cal Baptist. Sienna’s late-season surge has given the Bruins another huge weapon off the bench alongside Angela Dugalic.

“Everyone who joined this team this offseason has added so much to us both on the court and off the court,” Rice said. “I think our connectivity and the way we play with each other — we’re just a really selfless group, and that’s what we need at this point of the year.

“We don’t care who gets the points, who gets the credit from the outside standpoint, but we know as a collective group everyone has a huge impact on us winning.”

UCLA has won plenty with this core before reaching this stage.

In 2023, the Bruins reached the Sweet 16 before losing to South Carolina. In 2024, they reached the same round before losing to LSU.

Last year, UCLA won a rematch with the Tigers in the Elite Eight before getting blown out by UConn in a national semifinal.

All those experiences should help them in every game they play the rest of this season.

“Once you’ve played in a few March Madness games, you’ve played in high-level games,” Rice said, “you just have that feeling of confidence when you step on the court of you’ve been here before, you know what to expect, you know what it’s going to be like in the environment.

“So I do think that confidence that we’ll have, all the veteran players will be able to feel that, and it will also help the confidence of the younger girls and help them through that as well.”

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