When UCLA coach Cori Close opened her postgame news conference Wednesday night at State Farm Center, she praised a young Illinois team. Yes, the No. 2 Bruins beat the unranked Illini 80-67. But Close thought the opponents showed composure, aggression and confidence. “They gave us all we could hand le,” she said. The game pitted a senior-led UCLA team that looks like a national title contender against an up-and-coming Illinois team that started two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior. The Bruins entered the game with a plus-30.9 scoring margin and a 13-game winning streak. The Illini did their best not to fold, pulling within five points in the third quarter and seven in the fourth before UCLA closed it out. Here are four takeaways from the game. 1. UCLA’s bench picked up the slack for a quarter without senior center Lauren Betts, but she came up big in the second half. From the left: Illinois Fighting Illini players Lety Vasconcelos (35) and Cearah Parchment (30) battle UCLA Bruins center Lauren Betts (51) for a rebound in the first quarter at State Farm Center on Jan. 28, 2026, in Champaign. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune) Betts, UCLA’s 6-foot-7 preseason All-American, said she wasn’t happy with herself when she went to the bench with her third foul late in the first quarter. She was called for a personal foul against Jasmine Brown-Hagger, her second, and then bounced the ball hard in frustration. Officials gave her a technical foul, and suddenly the Bruins had to go without their best player. Betts sat out the entire second quarter, but she watched with pride as her younger sister, 6-foot-4 freshman Sienna Betts, filled in. Sienna Betts had all 10 of her points and five of her six rebounds in the first half as UCLA built a 45-31 halftime lead. “I am really proud of Sienna,” Lauren said. “I think freshman year is extremely hard, and especially coming to a program where you’re up against a lot of amazing seniors who are WNBA prospects. She continues to work hard every day, trust her process, get better and ask great questions. I told her to be confident regardless of what happens.” Lauren Betts returned to do her damage in the second half, scoring 18 of her 23 points. She also had nine rebounds. Illinois’ defensive plan coming in was to not double-team her because they felt it gave UCLA too much of an opportunity from 3-point range. Illinois coach Shauna Green instead started 6-foot-7 sophomore center Lety Vasconcelos to try to slow her down. It worked in one regard. The Bruins made just 1 of 10 3-point shots in the game. But Betts helped the Bruins pull away. “She’s a generational player,” Green said. “She’s the best post player in the country and one of the best to ever play the game. It was good for our young guys to experience that. But we wanted to play her one-on-one. We weren’t going to double. And that allowed us to hold them to one 3. She is an elite passer, and the more you double her, she’s just going to pick you apart to get kick-out 3s.” 2. As UCLA limited Illinois leading scorer Berry Wallace, two Illini freshmen rose to the challenge. Illinois Fighting Illini forward Cearah Parchment (30) gets a steal and goes in for a lay-p in the second half against the UCLA Bruins at State Farm Center on Jan. 28, 2026, in Champaign. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune) Wallace, a sophomore forward, has stepped up this season to average 19.8 points per game. But UCLA made her night difficult, holding her to 11 points on 3-for-17 shooting. “They do so many great actions, and we decided we were going to top block her whenever we could and not even let her get to her spots where she’s able to get into rhythm shots,” Close said. “And they like to bring her off a lot of zoom action or have her be a screener coming off a flare, and we just tried to make her back cut. And we were going to try to help from other places and make her touches more difficult.” With Wallace struggling to find a rhythm, freshman forward Cearah Parchment had 26 points and seven rebounds, and freshman guard Destiny Jackson added 15 points and six assists. Parchment and Jackson scored all of Illinois’ 18 points in the third quarter. Parchment’s 3-pointer and jumper, followed by Jackson’s jumper, made up a 7-0 run that cut UCLA’s run to 51-46. The Illini trailed 56-49 heading into the final quarter. “They were faceguarding Berry pretty much the whole game,” Parchment said. “She couldn’t get anything. She’s such a huge key to our team. I feel like she’s had a lot of pressure the last couple of games. We haven’t been helping her out. … So the pressure shouldn’t just be on one person’s shoulders to score all the points.” 3. Close gave some advice to a young Illini group. Close used her team as an example of what can happen when players stay in one place for a few years, as Lauren Betts, Kiki Rice and others have over the last few seasons. And Close suggested that perhaps the developing Illinois group should think about following suit. Photos: No. 2 UCLA 80, Illinois 67 “I could not be prouder of the loyalty and the trusting of the process of our core group. It’s almost unheard of anymore,” Close said. “I would say to this young core group at Illinois that if they can stay together and through the ups and downs fight the urge to choose themselves or look elsewhere. I always say, ‘The grass isn’t greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water.’ “We are where we are because we’ve had a core group of people that have been willing to stay committed even when it’s really hard. If they will choose that, they can be in a really special place.” It’s not the only lesson the Illini players will take from the game. “Just how aggressive they play,” Jackson said. “They made everything we did hard, even like an entry pass…The biggest thing we can take from them is playing hard every single possession and making everything tough no matter what part of the game it is.” 4. Two former Illinois Ms. Basketball winners made an impact. Illinois Fighting Illini guard Destiny Jackson (2) gets an off-balance shot off in the first half against the UCLA Bruins at State Farm Center on Jan. 28, 2026, in Champaign. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune) Jackson, the 2025 Ms. Basketball winner out of Whitney Young, and Parchment impressed Close with their play down the stretch. “I mean, goodness gracious, there’s not many guards that have been able to go around and finish over Lauren Betts, and I’m talking across the country,” Close said. “She’s the national defensive player of the year. A couple of those buckets she got at the end of the game, credit to them.” Meanwhile, UCLA graduate forward Angela Dugalic was the 2020 Illinois Ms. Basketball winner out of Maine West. She played her first season at Oregon and has been at UCLA since. Dugalic scored 12 points and had two assists off the bench. ...read more read less