SPOKANE, Washington — Don’t sleep on UCLA.

I don’t mean don’t overlook them. That’s impossible to do when the Bruins are the overall No. 1 seed and have a first-team All-American in Lauren Betts. I mean don’t let your guard down even for a second.

Do it, and you’ll get an idea of what it feels like to be roadkill.

Ole Miss went toe to toe with UCLA for the first half Friday night, no doubt sparking ideas of another NCAA tournament upset by the Rebels. Two minutes into the second half, however, it was obvious UCLA is nothing like that No. 1-seeded Stanford team Ole Miss stunned two years ago.

Londynn Jones opened the third quarter with a 3-pointer, Kiki Rice scored on a driving layup and then drained a 3 after Betts kicked the ball out to her. Kharyssa Richardson stopped the run with a layup, but it was an interruption rather than a reprieve.

Betts made a pair of turn-around jumpers, Jones hit another 3 and UCLA could start game-planning for its Elite Eight game against LSU on Sunday.

‘It was the adjustments we made at halftime. We felt like we’re better than one point better than Ole Miss, and that was the score at the half,’ Kiki Rice said. ‘But we needed to come out and play our game, rebound the ball, take care of the ball, and just continue to follow the game plan.

‘But I think it was kind of a little bit of a mindset shift and just going out there, being tough.’

UCLA spent much of the season as the No. 1 team and has lost only two games, to crosstown rival USC. Betts is a big reason for that. Bruins coach Cori Close calls her a ‘generational player,’ and she’s not wrong.

Betts finished with 31 points against Ole Miss, and missed just one of her 16 shots. She also had 10 rebounds and three blocks.

‘I’m honestly pretty used to that at this point. She’s so dominant every day in practice,’ Rice said. ‘You guys don’t see it, but every single day she comes with the same consistency, and she’s just sogreat. So I think when we do get in games, it’s like throw the ball up to Lauren. She’ll score, get me an assist.

‘I’m so grateful to have her on my team and not be playing against her.’

But the Bruins aren’t a one-person team. Find a way to corral Betts, and Rice will pop off. Bottle her up, and it frees Jones to start raining 3s. Contain all of them and you probably have octopus arms. But it won’t matter because Gabriela Jaquez will eat your lunch.

What makes the Bruins truly scary, however, is how quickly they can pile up the points.

Just as Richmond did in the second round of the NCAA tournament, Ole Miss was doing everything right at the end of the first half. And then all of the sudden the Bruins took off, and the Rebels were left chasing a boulder downhill.

‘It all came off our defense, right?’ Close said. ‘When we’re able to get stops and rebounds, we’re able toexecute and make them play in space, and do some things offensively that are harder when we have to take it out of the basket and go versus their press and all of those things.

‘But it’s so huge. That’s why it turns so quickly, it’s turning defense into offense,’ Close added. ‘That’s really where we’ve got to hang our hats.’

And the truly terrifying part? The Bruins still have room to grow and improve.

Against Ole Miss, like Richmond, UCLA had spurts of dominance but didn’t sustain it for the entire game. But the Bruins know they’ll need to. The dominance they showed in the regular season was fine. But it won’t mean much if they’re watching the Final Four from their couches.

‘We started really well tonight and we had a really good third quarter. But can we have more poise and consistency in the middle of the fight?’ Close said. ‘Those are some things we got to respond to and get better.’

You’ve all been warned.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

Deion Sanders’ quest to play a spring football game against another team has been shot down by the NCAA, at least for this year.

NCAA rules currently forbid two teams playing each other in the spring. But the Colorado and Syracuse football programs applied for a waiver from the NCAA to play and practice against each other in April.

The NCAA’s Division I FBS oversight committee then met this week via videoconference and opposed the request, noting the late timing of it and how it would give the two schools a “competitive and recruiting advantage” to engage in activities that ‘no other institutions are permitted to do,’ according to the committee’s report on the meeting.

The committee noted most schools already have planned their spring practice periods or completed it.

Sanders, Colorado’s football coach, wanted to play Syracuse in Boulder April 19 on ESPN2. His team instead will play itself in an intra-squad game that day at Folsom Field.

Who’s on this NCAA committee?

The committee includes Illinois head coach Bret Bielema. Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks, Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes, Miami (Fla.) athletic director Dan Radakovich and former Wyoming coach Craig Bohl, among others.

It noted that a spring game between two teams also would lead to players missing class time.

“The committee agreed to discuss, during a future meeting, a concept that could permit joint spring practices in future seasons,” the committee’s meeting report said.

Sanders had said in a news conference this month that he wanted to spice up his annual spring game by playing somebody else instead of practicing against each other.

‘I would like to style it like the pros,’ he said. ‘I’d like to go against someone (in practice) for a few days, and then you have the spring game. I think the public would be satisfied with that tremendously. I think it’s a tremendous idea.’

Syracuse coach Fran Brown then responded to Sanders’ idea on social media by saying he would take his team to Boulder for three days.

The committee’s meeting report indicated the request included a joint-contact practice session, a joint-noncontact practice session and an 11-on-11 scrimmage.

Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com

SPOKANE, Washington — Kailyn Gilbert was, by her own admission, getting cooked.

Zoe Brooks had made several tough shots and it sure looked as if the N.C. State star was about to make another with 90 seconds left Friday night. But when Brooks lifted the ball, Gilbert saw her opportunity.

“I was like, ‘I can’t let her get an easy look,” the LSU guard said.

The third-shortest player on LSU’s team, Gilbert leaped and gave the ball a mighty swat. It was only the second block of her career, and it saved LSU’s season.

‘When that play happened,” said the 5-foot-8 Gilbert, ‘I knew we were going to win the game.’

It might seem a given for LSU to be playing deep into March, the 80-73 win over N.C. State sending the Tigers to the Elite Eight for a third consecutive season. But until Gilbert’s block, LSU looked very much like a team bound for the offseason.

It had blown its six-point lead from late in the third quarter. Flau’jae Johnson couldn’t buy a bucket and was on the bench for the last five minutes of the game after getting raked across the eye. Mikaylah Williams, so clutch from 3-point range in the first two games of the NCAA tournament, couldn’t get one to drop.

The Wolfpack had LSU on its heels, and the Tigers knew it.

‘Nobody likes to lose, so I talked to my teammates in the huddle and told them we’ve got to take our matchups personally,” Aneesah Morrow said. ‘We have to be able to dominate, and we have to be able to make defensive stops. And we did that toward the end of the game.”

At 5-foot-8, blocks are not a regular part of Gilbert’s repertoire.

‘I could block shots,’ she said, smiling. ‘I just don’t choose to.’

But she wasn’t about to let Brooks, whose 21 points led the Wolfpack, score again. So she jumped and sent the ball flying toward the baseline. Teammate Shayeann Day-Wilson sprinted for the ball, snagging it right before it went out of bounds.

Day-Wilson fed Williams, who scored on a driving layup to give LSU its first lead, 74-73, since 8:25 left in the fourth, and now it was N.C. State’s turn to get cooked.

Sa’Myah Smith had another block on Brooks during the Wolfpack’s next possession, with Morrow grabbing the ball. Brooks fouled Smith, who made both shots to extend LSU’s lead. The Tigers threw the ball away on an inbounds play, but the Wolfpack couldn’t do anything with it, getting whistled for an offensive foul.

With just 15 seconds left, N.C. State was forced to foul and Williams and Smith each made a pair to seal the win.

‘We made plays down the stretch. We made some bad plays down the stretch, but we made plays down the stretch to pull it out and win,’ LSU coach Kim Mulkey said. ‘It means we did some good stuff.’

Led by Gilbert.

Gilbert spent her first two seasons at Arizona. When she came to LSU for a visit, Mulkey and assistant Bob Starkey sat her down and Mulkey was unflinchingly honest. She had no doubt Gilbert could contribute offensively.

If she didn’t improve her defense, though, she’d never see the floor at LSU.

Rather than resisting, Gilbert took it as a challenge.

‘I said, ‘You know what? I understand that culture. I’m willing to lock in defensively,’” she said.

Mulkey said she’s watched as Gilbert’s defense has gotten better throughout the season. For Gilbert to save a game with her defense, rather than her offense, it doesn’t get much better for a coach.

‘Like she said, she was getting beat off the dribble there. For her to make a defensive play, it’s only fitting that we talk about that in this game,” Mulkey said.

What makes March Madness so special is you never know who’s going to step up. Or how.

LSU didn’t need Gilbert’s offense against N.C. State. It needed her defense, and she delivered.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.

BOSTON — Alysa Liu let out a shocked smile Friday night, as the crowd at TD Garden roared and the stuffed animals began to rain down on the ice.

Liu became the first American woman in nearly two decades to win a world figure skating title Friday, clinching history with a brilliant, poised performance to the music of Boston-born disco artist Donna Summer. After winning the short program portion of the women’s singles competition earlier this week, she won the free skate, too − sealing her place atop the podium with the final performance of the night.

Liu, 19, leapfrogged three-time defending world champion Kaori Sakamoto of Japan to win the gold with a total score of 222.97. Mone Chiba, who is also from Japan, took bronze, while Americans Isabeau Levito and Amber Glenn finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

When asked if she expected to be a world champion when she returned to competition last year, Liu laughed. No. No she did not.

‘Even yesterday, I didn’t expect this,’ she said.

It’s the first time an American woman has topped the world championship podium since Kimmie Meissner in 2006.

It’s not all that surprising that Liu made it here, to the pinnacle of her sport. It’s more the path that she took to get here − a winding, complicated journey that is all her own.

Liu started skating at 5 years old at a rink near her Richmond, California home, and it didn’t take long for her potential to be recognized. By the time she turned 9, according to NBC Sports, she was waking up at 4:30 a.m. for private training sessions. By 12, she was landing a triple axel − the most difficult jump in women’s figure skating − in competition. And by 13, she was already a national champion at the senior level.

In a sport that is constantly looking for ‘the next big thing,’ Liu certainly appeared to be it.

After competing at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, where she was the youngest member of Team USA at 16, Liu proceeded to place third at the world championships. But with some of her main goals in skating behind her, she began to think about the other things she wanted from her life. In April of that year, Liu announced on Instagram that she was retiring from the sport and ‘moving on with my life.’

‘I really let the problems get to me a little bit more than now,’ Liu told Olympics.com, when asked about that 2021-22 season. ‘I don’t think I was able to process much of it as I was in it. But once I left, I really could see the full picture.’

After more than a year away, that full picture of skating started to prompt questions. Could she still do a triple jump? Could she run a program? Above all else: Did she want to do all of those things?

Last spring, Liu reached out to Phillip DiGuglielmo, who had coached her off and on since she was a kid. She told him she wanted to come back to competition. He said he poured a glass of wine and tried to talk her out of it.

‘I said, ‘Nobody’s done this. Nobody walks away and comes back,’ ‘ DiGuglielmo recalled. ‘Rachael Flatt tried. Gracie Gold tried. Lots of people try, because they love it. And that’s great. They’re not successful at it.

‘She just listed off all these reasons about why she could do it.’

So they got back to work, albeit with a different approach and, from Liu’s point of view, a new mindset. She felt empowered by her time away from figure skating, free of the ‘prodigy’ label, expectations and rigidity. If she wanted to do a morning practice session, she did. If she didn’t feel up to it, or overslept, then oh well. So it goes.

‘I have a lot of freedom,’ she said Tuesday. ‘You know how we hire the coaches? I really do feel like I’m kind of the boss of the coaches, which is weird. Because normally it’s the other way around, the coaches bossed you.’

‘It feels like there’s really no pressure,’ she added. ‘Like, I could just walk away if I wanted to. But for now, I don’t want to. So, yeah.’

In the pressure-packed environment at worlds this week, it was telling that Liu did a cartwheel before stepping onto the ice.

No American skater smiled more during the 2022 Olympics than Liu, who finished sixth but seemed most excited about the peach juice and souvenir options available in the Olympic village. She now seems even happier still.

‘ feel like her cheerfulness, her kindness and the way she’s always so happy brought her to this position on top of the podium,’ Sakamoto said through a translator. ‘In fact, if I would say something has changed, it’d be that she’s more bright, she’s more happy now.’

When asked about her journey at multiple points this week, Liu has made one thing clear: She has no regrets. About her youth career. About her decision to retire. And certainly not about her choice to return.

‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t decide to retire for a little bit,’ she said Wednesday. ‘So I just am glad that I listen to myself and do whatever. Because it just works out in the end.’

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @tomschad.bsky.social.

This story has been updated with a new photo and to fix a typo.

Hailey Van Lith and No. 2 seed TCU will begin the day with a battle against Olivia Miles, Hannah Hidalgo and No. 3 seed Notre Dame. Van Lith leads the Horned Frogs with 17.7 points, 5.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game, while Hidalgo leads the Fighting Irish with 24.1 points and 3.7 steals per game.

Then, Madison Booker and No. 1 seed Texas will take the floor against No. 5 seed Tennessee in another afternoon contest. UConn’s duo of Paige Bueckers and Sarah Strong will look to keep the No. 2 seeded Huskies’ shot at the title alive with a game against No. 3 seed Oklahoma in the early evening.

Finally, No. 1 seed USC will try to move forward without superstar JuJu Watkins, who is out for the postseason after tearing her ACL in the previous round. The Trojans are still believed to be talented enough to challenge Ayoka Lee and No. 5 seed Kansas State in the nightcap for the final spot in the Elite Eight.

Women’s March Madness games today: TV channel, live stream, times for Sweet 16

Saturday, March 29

All times Eastern; numbers listed are seedings.

Regional 3 (Birmingham): No. 3 seed Notre Dame vs. No. 2 seed TCU, 1 p.m. | ABC
Regional 3 (Birmingham): No. 5 seed Tennessee vs. No. 1 seed Texas, 3:30 p.m. | ABC
Regional 4 (Spokane): No. 5 seed Oklahoma vs. No. 2 seed UConn, 5:30 p.m. | ESPN
Regional 4 (Spokane): No. 5 seed Kansas State vs. No. 1 seed USC, 8 p.m. | ESPN

Games on ABC and ESPN can be live streamed on the ESPN app or through Fubo, which is offering a free trial to new subscribers.

Watch Women’s March Madness games with Fubo

USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb took the podium at the Sweet 16 of the women’s NCAA Tournament on Friday for the first time since JuJu Watkins sustained a season-ending knee injury.

The fourth-year Trojans coach wanted to clear up a piece of business: there was no ill-intent by Mississippi State and Bulldogs guard Chandler Prater on the play that resulted in Watkins’ injury.

‘A 100% no. There was no intent to injure anybody,’ Gottlieb said Friday at Spokane Arena ahead of USC’s Sweet 16 game on Saturday.

Watkins, one of women’s basketball’s biggest stars, went down with a knee injury in the first quarter of USC’s second-round win against Mississippi State on March 24 while heading down the court at the Galen Center in Los Angeles on a fast break opportunity. As Watkins made her way to the paint, she got tied up with Prater and immediately fell down to the ground, showing an immense amount of pain.

Watkins was then carried off by members of USC’s medical staff, and taken to a nearby medical center for further testing. Shortly after USC’s win over Mississippi State, it was reported that Watkins would miss the remainder of the Trojans’ March Madness run.

As noted by The Clarion-Ledger, part of the USA TODAY Network, Mississippi State and Prater have received negative backlash on social media after Watkins’ injury. Mississippi State coach Sam Purcell condemned the backlash his players were receiving after the game during his postgame news conference. Gottlieb echoed those sentiments on Friday.

‘It was a physical game,’ Gottlieb said. ‘No one deserves online bullying in any realm, but certainly not a young woman in Chandler, who was trying to make a play, and unfortunately our player got hurt. But there was nothing to me that looked like it had any intent to hurt her. … That’s not a USC view at all.

‘We have really passionate fans, and there’s a lot of love for JuJu. I understand people being sad, you know, and hurt that she’s hurt, but nobody in our camp feels like there was any type of attack on her and would not support any type of online bullying or things of that nature. She’s a young person that was playing basketball too, and I’m sure did not want any part of a negative situation that it turned out to be.’

Watkins is expected to undergo surgery and be out for the majority of the 2025-26 season, as the sophomore guard rehabs. USC has not confirmed ESPN’s Shams Charania’s Monday report that Watkins tore her ACL.

USC is scheduled to tip off at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday against No. 5 Kansas State. The winner advances to the Elite Eight against the winner of No. 2 seed UConn vs. No. 3 seed Oklahoma.

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.