A Big Ten basketball team has won an NCAA Tournament for the first time in more than 25 years.
UCLA became the first Big Ten women’s basketball team since Purdue in 1999 to win a national championship as the Bruins blew out fellow No. 1 seed South Carolina, 79-51, in Sunday’s national championship game.
The Bruins are only the second Big Ten team to win a national championship since the NCAA women’s basketball tournament started in 1982. It’s the second all-time national championship for UCLA women’s basketball, which won the AIAW national championship in 1978.
UCLA, which completed a 37-1 season with Sunday’s win, controlled the national championship game from start to finish. The Bruins took a 13-4 lead less than five minutes into the game and finished the first quarter with a 21-10 lead. The Bruins took a 36-23 lead into halftime and quickly put the game out of reach in the second half, outscoring South Carolina 25-9 in the third quarter before ultimately winning by 28.
UCLA is the first Big Ten basketball team of either gender to win a national championship since Michigan State won the men’s title in 2000. Michigan will look to end the Big Ten men‘s drought on Monday, when the Wolverines face UConn in the national championship game (8:50 p.m., TBS).
If the Wolverines win, the Big Ten (which also won the football national championship with Indiana) would become the first conference to sweep the NCAA basketball tournaments since UConn – a member of the American Athletic Conference at the time – won both the men’s and women’s titles in 2014.
