Gabriela Jaquez scored 21 points on April 5, 2026, and UCLA beat South Carolina to win its first NCAA women’s basketball title. The senior from Tucson helped finish the job for a Bruins team that finally climbed to the top of the sport.
UCLA called it an amazing way to finish off the season, and Jaquez delivered the kind of performance that made that line feel earned. She led the Bruins in the championship game, and the title gave the program its first women’s basketball crown after years of trying to break through.
The win also put a Tucson basketball family back in the spotlight. Jaquez has strong roots in the city through her mother, Angela Sather Jaquez, who was a 1993 all-city player at Sabino High School and averaged 17 points and nine rebounds a game there. After one year at Pima College, she transferred to Concordia University near Los Angeles and is now a realtor in Southern California.
Those family ties reach beyond Gabriela. Angela Sather Jaquez is the mother of ex-UCLA standout Jaime Jaquez Jr., who now plays for the Miami Heat, and Gabriela’s championship run gave the family another major national moment. It is a reminder that the Bruins’ title was built on one game, but the story around it stretches from Tucson gyms to the NBA.
For UCLA, the breakthrough settles a question that had followed the program for years. For Jaquez, it adds a defining line to a career already tied to one of the biggest wins in school history.
