Lauren Betts stays hot as No. 1 UCLA gets over Sweet 16 hump - ESPN

SPOKANE, Wash. — Ever since UCLA lost its final home game of the season to USC at the start of the month, Lauren Betts has changed her mindset. Nothing will get in her way, she has decided.

«Just be aggressive no matter what and do whatever I need to do to help my team,» she said.

That has never been more clear than through the start of the NCAA tournament, especially UCLA's 76-62 win over Ole Miss on Friday in the Sweet 16.

Betts finished with 31 points on 15-of-16 shooting and 10 rebounds, becoming the first Division I player to have 30 points, 10 rebounds and 80% FG in back-to-back games over the past 20 seasons, in regular season or postseason play.

«That's insane,» Betts said.

Betts' 93.8% shooting from the floor tied the record for the highest field goal percentage ever in an NCAA tournament game. She is also the third player in the past 25 years with multiple 30-point, 10-rebound games in a single NCAA tournament and the first since Brittney Griner in 2013; the other player to do it was Elena Delle Donne in 2012. All three of them did so in consecutive games.

"[We] have a generational player on your team," UCLA coach Cori Close said. «She's not only dominant for herself, but she makes everybody on the floor better, and so you just want to put the ball in her hands as many ways and as many times as possible.… But Lauren is a dominant player on both sides of the ball.… That's why she's one of the top players in the country, and that's why she makes us better, and that's why we're in the Elite Eight.»

Heading into the game, Close didn't feel that Betts had to touch the ball on every possession, she had to be involved with the play somehow. If she wasn't, it meant Ole Miss' defense did something that was taking the