One wonders what are the financial constraints to Close's rebuilding project. UCLA Athletics is a financial dumpster fire, seemingly second only to Rutgers in the BIG. UCLA Athletics reported a department-wide operating deficiency of ($21,632,153) for fiscal year 2025. While all WBB programs lose money, UCLA WBB lost the most money ($7,683,011) in fiscal year 2025 of the 16 public schools in the BIG (excluding USC and Northwestern).
UCLA 2025
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One wonders what are the financial constraints to Close's rebuilding project. UCLA Athletics is a financial dumpster fire, seemingly second only to Rutgers in the BIG. UCLA Athletics reported a department-wide operating deficiency of ($21,632,153) for fiscal year 2025. While all WBB programs lose money, UCLA WBB lost the most money ($7,683,011) in fiscal year 2025 of the 16 public schools in the BIG (excluding USC and Northwestern).
nwhoopfan
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Charlisse was there last season, she wasn't able to play due to injury.
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Every coach says "we're gonna reload." Only one I've seen do it, and she isn't in Los Angeles.
Top six players moving on is much more likely to become a midseason press conference after falling to 12-5 "we always knew it was going to be tough to replace last year's seniors..."
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She's out for the season.
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She’s had a tough career.
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Sorry to hear it. Is this the better part of two seasons she’s missed now? That’s not easy to come back from.
WBBTakeover
"They put me through IT, but imma stick by them!"
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If she can recover, she'll be one of the most sought-after post players in the country (assuming she doesn't stick around Westwood for another season).
If she does enter the portal, she’ll be a coveted prospect for sure.
DefenseBB
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I have looked hard at her roster all year and she will be so bereft of talent next year, she has to find a way to reload but I do think what @BigTenGuy said is really interesting. I am not sure how they include the NIL money so maybe their is that "hidden" bank account for Cori to use.
UCLA coach Cori Close on NIL and the new reality of college basketball: 'We need to be really careful'
UCLA head coach Cori Close is amazed by the growth of the women's game over her 15-year coaching career with the Bruins. But she remains cautious of where it's going in the new NCAA landscape, which many have categorized as an unregulated Wild West.sports.yahoo.com
“We just have no boundaries at all,” Close said. “There’s no salary cap. There’s no competitive equity. And what’s happening is, the people that are losing I’m worried will slow down the growth of the game because it’s shutting out high school athletes. It’s really taking away their percentages of opportunities. And I don’t like it.”“I have a responsibility to keep our program at a championship level and I don’t think I can do it with just freshmen anymore,” Close said.Three of UCLA’s top six contributors are transfers as the program chases its first NCAA championship and a repeat Final Four. Its 2025 Final Four berth in Tampa was the first in the NCAA era for UCLA.All six of them are seniors, creating a massive hole Close needs to fill. She said she can’t and won’t replace them with six freshmen, as she would have in the past with larger recruiting classes. Instead, Close and the coaching staff will enter the offseason seeking four to five transfers, with a smaller three-to-four-player freshman class.“We have no interest in rebuilding,” Close said. “We really are intent on reloading. My responsibility is to adjust in the landscape that I’m given and to lead well no matter what. But the reality is, I have to do that whether I like it or not.”
Sienna Betts is the only non Senior/grad getting any real playing time. She has 7 Seniors/Grads and Gardiner who is hurt and could come back or leave. She has Bilic and Muse as other players garnering some time but I am not thinking any of the 3 underclassman are good enough to consider "reloading" vs. "rebuilding". I never underestimate Cori's ability to sell "snow to an eskimo" but her task this off-season will be mighty tall.....
It will be very interesting to see next January, when schools report to the NCAA their direct revenue sharing payments to players, by sport, just how much UCLA and other WBB programs spent in institutional NIL revenue sharing funds for fiscal year 2026. 5% for WBB programs has been mentioned as the default allocation for WBB, but there will no doubt be variation, perhaps wide variation.
I have reviewed the fiscal year ‘25 financial reports submitted to the NCAA by 15 of the public (exc. Indiana) BIG schools. 14 are silent on NIL, but Penn State reported that WBB had $110,000 (< 1%) in expenses for "Institutional NIL Revenue Sharing" from a department-wide NIL expense total of $18,368,391. Apart from the pittance for WBB, I am confused why Penn State included NIL revenue sharing in its report on fiscal year 2025, which ended June 30, 2025, when institutional NIL revenue sharing did not begin until July 1, 2025. Assume this timing issue is why the recent fiscal year ‘25 reports for the other 14 BIG public schools were silent on institutional NIL revenue sharing payments.